


The Heart of the Ocean

by Winterflower



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Historical, Draw Me Like One of Your French Girls, M/M, Other, Titanic AU, smut on a ship (later chapters), some mild NSFW material, the car scene, you guys all know the plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-15 01:37:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterflower/pseuds/Winterflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a young and handsome, but penniless Lithuanian count, Hannibal Lecter, is married off to a rich New York heiress, he has no choice but to board the RMS Titanic and prepare for a new life of riches, empty chatter and utter boredom. But a chance encounter with a Bohemian artist WIll Graham promises to change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was trying to learn "My Heart Will Go On" on the piano, when all of a sudden I saw an image of Jack Dawson with Will Graham's face. Hence, the AU.  
> Haven't done my research well enough, so some facts about the Titanic may be off. My apologies!  
> Thank you for reading!

She stood proud and magnificent in the glow of the morning sun. _Three tons of steel, five million dollars of Astor money, two thousand Irish and English hands pounding, painting and grinding for the better part of five years._ Hannibal traced the outline of the black steel hull of the HMS Titanic with his eyes. _The ship that God himself could not sink._

He felt the body of the woman next to him shift, a ripple of curiosity, excitement perhaps. His nose detected a faint whiff of vanilla and elderflower. Anticipation, curiosity, a child’s emotions. Miss Charlotte Cavendish van Berwick, his future wife and fiancée drank the atmosphere on the pier greedily.

“Look at all these people, bustling about, Hannibal! They’re all here just to see us off!” she exclaimed and placed her gloved hand into his palm. He resisted the urge to tell her that most of them could not care less about the _rich first-class folks_ boarding the ship, but were just gawking at the Titanic. He saw their faces through the small window, little boys running around, valets and orderlies loading chests and crates into the belly of the monster, a little girl sat on her father’s shoulders waving at the hundreds of faces on the first deck.

He gave the hand a mild squeeze. It was anything but spousal affection, an involuntary spasm of dread as he contemplated the future of empty conversations, riches and utter boredom. For a moment, he imagined that this was all a moving picture, one of the curious feats of technology he had seen at Cinema de Rue de Chatelet when he was still a young and penniless medical student in Paris.

There it was. His life, past, present and future unfolding in a series of rapid images. In the Ford sat a handsome ( _he would never call himself handsome, but any bystander could tell his face had a certain magnetic attraction_ ) young man holding the hand of a beautiful ( _he had to admit, she was beautiful_ ) young lady. But handsome was an ill-fitting word for the strange and cruel charm that hung about him like a delicate perfume, because handsome promised love and security. Hannibal had neither. Intriguing would be more accurate, a word that was like a seductress in a dark alley, both alluring and dangerous. A promise of a sharp knife silently plunged between the ribs.

Suddenly a crowd of people flooded the driveway .

“Look, Papa it’s the Titanic!” a little boy holding a toy ship in his hands screamed.

The Ford stopped abruptly. A pocket watch flew out of Hannibal’s breast pocket and landed on the seat next to Charlotte. It was ten to noon. With any luck, they would be late and he could simply abandon Charlotte, her overbearing mother and take the first ferry to back France.

The driver honked impatiently and the sea of people parted.  Hannibal sighed and closed his eyes.  His old friend had promised to deliver a treat for him. _Un vrai beau gateaux, juste pour toi, mon amie_.  At least something to look forward to.

\----------------------------

Outside a car is honking furiously, but all Will Graham can hear is the thoughts in his mind. _Don’t let it show. Don’t let it show._ He keeps his face still as a mirror and stares at the clock on the wall. Ten to noon. Sven and Olaf, two burly Viking Swedes from somewhere called _Skåne,_ sit on the opposite side of the table. In the middle, is a crumpled, sweat-stained third class ticket. To New York. Back home.

“Hit me up, Sven,” he says and brushes a strand of lanky hair from his face.  Nine to noon. Nine minutes. All he needs is a queen. A queen of spades.

Sven slides a card across the table . Olaf licks his lips apprehensively and takes another swig from the keg. Will follows the droplets as they travel from his chin and soak into the fabric of his sweat-stained shirt.

“Vad tittar du på, Sven? Vi skulle vinna! _What are you looking at, Sven? Vi are going to win!_

“Du är ju en riktig idiot, Olaf! _You are a real idiot, Olaf._

Will’s eyes are on the clock.

“Eight minutes. Let’s see the cards.”

Olaf and Sven place their cards on the table. A pair of aces and –he swallows- and four sixes and a king from Sven.

He jams his own cards into the worn wood of the table.

A royal flush.

“I’m sorry boys. It looks like you’ll be staying here for the time being.”

\-----------------------------------

The car stopped and a valet whose name Hannibal had not cared to memorize opened the door.

“Sir.”

Hannibal stepped out. The ship's black hull loomed like an executioner’s axe, sharp and unforgiving steel against the clear blue water and cream-yellow sky. The most unpleasant things always occurred on the most pleasant of days.  He held his hand for Charlotte.

“Darling,” she exclaimed. “Look at it!” He fixed his gaze over the wide brim of her purple hat and on the hull. Black, white, red. It was a work of brutal force, an image of unrelenting progress, a domination over nature.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a car airlifted onto the lower deck; a red metallic butterfly making its descent.

“It’s hardly any longer than the _Mauritania,_ ” he said, but Charlotte was no longer listening. A tall, thin woman was making her way toward them. Seeing her and Charlotte side by side, one could make no mistake of their relation. This was Mrs. Elizabeth Cavendish van Berwick, social empress and his future mother-in-law. She was in all ways like an expensive brooch; all gold and diamonds on one side and a sharp, sarcastic needle on the other.

“Oh, Hannibal, you can be blasé about many things, but not about the _Titanic_ ,” she exclaimed. “It was designed by a good family friend, Mr. Thomas Andrews. Make sure you don’t let him hear-“

A loud clatter interrupted her. The chambermaid was struggling with her mistress’s parcels. Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick frowned and with a high-pitched _“careful there, Trudy, you don’t want to damage Auntie Violet’s Meissen”_ she was off followed by Charlotte.

The moment’s respite from the burdens of his new life was short lived.

“The luggage, sir.” It was not a question, but a low bass growl. The voice of Jean-Jacques Crochard . They had met two months earlier, in the library of his uncle’s house.

_“Hannibal, this is Jean-Jacques Crochard. He will be accompanying you to New York.”_

_The man had the stature of a brute and a few well healed scars above his eyes. He nodded, curtly. A man of few words and loud actions._

_Hannibal said nothing._

_“He is aware of your-“ Uncle Robert fumbled for the politically correct word for his art- “your  appetites, shall we say.” Art was the correct word. Art._

“Have the valet take it to suit 51 B and 52 B.”

With a curt "yes, sir" nod, Crochard was off.

\-------------------------------

There is a moment of concentrated silence. And then the table erupts into a medley of shouts. Olaf knocks over his keg and a tide of ale sweeps the cards off the table. Will watches the queen of spades, swept away on a yellow tide.

“Vad fan, Olaf!” _What the fuck, Olaf?_

Sven takes a sweep at Will, but instead turns and lands his punch into Olaf’s face.  Will picks up the ale soaked ticket and the money from the table and makes for the door.

“You’ve got one minute, son,” the bartender yells after him.

He runs onto pier, dodges a man loading heavy suitcases and makes for the third class entrance.

Everything in his life happens just in time.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta-ed, so all errors are mine alone. I'm going to have to use artistic liberties with some historical facts in the next chapters.   
> Once again a huuuge thank you for reading!

They walked up the ramp. The Mrs. in front. Setting the rhythm with her silver-stag headed cane. Judging by the crowd, they were not the only ones boarding late. Behind them, Hannibal heard excited chatter. Italian. French. Shuffling of silk and rustling of Chantilly on brocade, the smell of ballrooms, expensive dinners, pale white hands bathing in the light of chandeliers, imported cognac and cigarettes. The words his uncle spoke to him in private came to his mind. _Poverty is unbecoming, Hannibal._ Money was beautiful. And suffocating.

A woman in front of them coaxed a reluctant dog to cross the doorway. The little creature yapped at his mistress.

“I am so truly sorry,” the young woman tried. “Come on, darling. We have to go.” She gave the pug a gentle nudge, but it wheeled around and bit the ankle of the valet. The man flinched and bumped into a woman, who shrieked and dropped her parcel. Something broke and pieces of pearls and glass scattered into the hallway.

Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick crumpled her nose in disapproval. Hannibal noticed the peculiar effect it had on her entire face, lifting her small upper lip and exposing a set of almost canine pearly white teeth. You couldn’t make a horse into a lady even if you dressed it in silk.

“My goodness Hannibal, if you had not made a chronic habit of being late, we would already be drinking tea in our suite. Not skittering about the hallway like some _immigrant_ family,” she said while the orderlies cleared the broken vase from the hallway.

“Your daughter insisted I change my toilette to something more agreeable, madam,” he answered.

“And rightfully so,” the woman continued blowing steam. Hannibal saw the sweat beading on her forehead. “It is bad luck to wear black on the first day of a maiden voyage.”

Surely, his luck could sink no further. He gave a small private chuckle at the accidental pun.

\----------------------

In the suit, Crochard was overseeing a group of five servants hanging his master’s collection of art. The door opened and closed with a soft, apprehensive click. He smelled a whiff of pomade and perhaps some feminine perfume. A young boy, clad in a valet’s white shirt and dark pants was standing to his left. Nervous, little bugger, Crochard thought, and tried to think whether he had hired any new staff for the journey. Then he remembered.

“And who are you?”

_I am looking for something special for my friend. He has a rather refined taste._

_Female or male? The madam’s voice was heavy and sweet, sharp teeth biting into a peach. The echo of her words dribbled in the room like sweet juice. The stranger nodded to the left. The madam’s eyes followed. A young man, curly hair, porcelain skin, pure as the breath of frost on a winter morning. Rafael’s angel from some long forgotten painting._

_The madam sucked air through her teeth. Placed her little ivory mirror on the table. Smoothed her skirt._

_Aristide is not for sale._

_The stranger smiled. In Paris there was a price for everything. Even for things not for sale._

 “My name is Aristide.”

Crochard’s lips curled ever so slightly, a little sadistic excitement. It would be fun to torture this little bird just a little longer. Even if it was only verbal.

“And what happened to James?” _The first name that came to his mind._

The child like faced grimaced with fear.

“A bad case of consumption, I’m afraid, sir.” _Life as paid flesh must have taught him the liar’s art._

One of the maids shrieked as a large painting fell off the wall and hit one of the chests. Crochard ignored the commotion.

“Is that so?” He hummed and barked at the maid “no, not the Monet. His grace prefers Picasso in the salon.” Then he flashed his teeth at Aristide. Not a smile, but the cruel smirk of a boy about to rip off the wings of the fly he is pinching between his fingers.

“Well, I’m glad they sent you instead. Please.”

He motioned Aristide to follow him into the master bedroom.

“You better take off your clothes. His grace has a taste for flesh not pretty clothes.”

Crochard closed the doors and quietly turned the key in the lock.

\-------------------------

It takes a while to disentangle himself from the commotion of suitcases, trunks and children in the third class hallway. He gets a few “oy, watch were you’re going” ‘s tossed after him as he scrambles to the rear. The door to Room 312 C is open. He can hear Swedish in the room. He walks in, drops his bag on the bed. One of the Swedes gives him a perplexed look.

“Var är Sven?”

The ship sounds a deep bass, a farewell. He rushes out and onto the lower promenade. The deck moves beneath his feet like the awakening of some ancient creature. He waves at the thousands of the nameless faces. At no one and at everyone.

\----------------

He was holding the Picasso in his hands, when he heard the menacing growl. And then for a moment the ground accelerated. The beast clawed its way into the ocean.

“Hannibal, are you listening?”

“Yes, darling.” The murky, fevered dream of the shapes in the Picasso came to life before his eyes. Charlotte’s voice was a distant flicker of light. She approached him. A pair of leather clad fingers blurred his line of vision. Her hand took hold of the frame of the painting.

“I was saying that we have to visit the gallery of my uncle Archibald van Berwick. I have to introduce you to Birch and Audubon. Their paintings are so full of life, so vivid in detail…” she let the sentence trail into the emptiness between her and Hannibal.

He didn’t respond.

“This is like a child’s work. All these squares and circles and splotches of ink,” she finally said. “I doubt this Picasso will ever be an artist of great fame.”

“On the contrary,” he interrupted her, a gentle menace in his voice. “This is like a fevered dream, a shape in a nonexistent world.”

Her thumb brushed the canvas. Not a gesture of caress, but a condescension.

“I’m glad they were cheap.” Her final words. And with an “I will see you at dinner” she left the room. Money was beautiful. And suffocating. Those words came to him like a hymn. Over and over circling in his mind, until his anger was like boil of pus on inflamed skin. He needed to lance it.

He heard the soft click of the newly oiled locks. It was Crochard, entering from the bedroom.

“Sir.”

“In a minute, Crochard.”

Hannibal replaced the Picasso and reached for the whiskey decanter. The liquid was oak barrels, old, fertile land, the whisper of the wind moving in the barley. He let it burn his throat, envelop his nerves in a calm, loving haze. Then he entered the room.

For Hannibal, above all, was a collector of beautiful things. 

 _Comme un Raphael, n’est pas?_ he said to himself.

The boy lay on the bed, flesh as white as the first breath of snow.  Aristide quivered under the inspection of the maroon irises. In fear? In anticipation?

“Leave us.”

“As you wish, Sir.”

 Crochard retreated and closed the door.

Hannibal trailed his fingers around the nipple. Soft, flesh. Like an instrument, it responded to his touch. Down past the chest, past the belly button. He felt the protruding iliac crest of the hip. Aristide shuddered.

“You _are_ beautiful.”

From the drawer, Hannibal pulled out an ornate dagger. The handle was gold, carved with 14th century Moorish symbol. He drew blood from the stomach. Flowers of death bloomed on snow. Aristide whimpered, but Hannibal placed his index finger in the boy’s mouth.

“Shh. You don’t need to fear me.” _Not yet._ But there was only way this ecstasy could end.

With one swift movement he took off his jacket and straddled the boy.

“Unbutton my shirt.”

While watching the deft white fingers trailing down his chest, he wondered how many men had tasted his flesh before him. He took some comfort in knowing that he would be the last one. The blood from the stomach wound soaked into the tails of the shirt. Aristide’s fingers touched Hannibal’s collarbone. It was an apprehensive question, a request for permission. Hannibal leaned down and curled his fingers around the angel hair. His tongue traced the outline of the right clavicle.

Aristide moaned beneath him. His fingers were already unclasping the belt on Hannibal’s trousers, reaching for his aching cock. Hannibal sucked the tender flesh on the boy’s neck, bit into the perfume and pomade. The fragrances of an expensive whorehouse. A paid pleasure always had the same unpleasant aftertaste, but for now he didn’t care.

Aristide drew his fingers up and down his cock.

 All structure melted inside him into a tiny center of pleasure. Aristide shrieked in ecstasy and pain when Hannibal nipped his earlobe. Outside, the ocean hummed in quiet solitude, its heart beating with a steady, melancholy bass. With every beat, it whisked him farther and farther.

\------------------

Crochard always returned to savour the end of this symphony of death. He stood in front of the door and listened to the screams-first of ecstasy, then of fear. But death was always sudden and silent. A crescendo ending in a distant echo.  He pressed his ear to the door and heard a click. His master had opened the door to the private promenade outside the emperor suite. It was time for Crochard to enter.

He turned the key and entered the room. The smell was always the same. Like singed hair, expensive wax candles and something else that he could only characterize as heaviness and weight. He minimized eye contact with the body. Though he had seen death in its many gruesome forms in the alleys of Paris, the eyes always unnerved him. Pleading, defiant. The same hope glimmered in Aristide’s terrified eyes. The hope that filled the victim’s heart when he still thought that some small mercy would pry him away from the claws of the monster. The door to the promenade was open and a light, salty breeze played with the curtains. Crochard never dared to look directly at his master after a performance, but he stole covert glances at the man leaning over the railing. Cruelty and beauty often lived side by side. Keeping an eye on his master, Crochard gathered the bloodied sheet, wrapped the lifeless body and slung it over his shoulder.

Hannibal felt the cool railing against the skin of his torso. He leaned as far as he dared and stared into the deep, dark heart of the ocean. At this time of the year, the water of the Atlantic was lethal. But already the impact would kill him. He wondered about the powerful motion of the turbines. Of being swept under the pure water. Dragged into the depths.

\-------------------

When you lie down and stare at the sky for long enough, it starts to seem as though you’re looking into an ocean of diamonds. Will Graham lies on the deck and dreams of the little glittering lights. Years. Light-years away. He inhales the minuscule sprays of salt and his mind travels to a faraway time and place.

The place is probably Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin and it’s December or January, but he cannot be sure. His mind has a tendency to dress everything in the soft blue and dirty white of a Wisconsin winter, so that any particulars of the memory are always accompanied by the biting cold.

 It is the music to which his memories unravel. In that particular image, he knows he is holding someone’s (it must be Andrew) hand. Above them, the sky is painted with dots of light and expanses of darkness.

Will traces the Big Dipper with his index finger, connecting the seven pale dots.

Disconnected words float into his mind.

“How far away is it?”

“Many lifetimes away.”

Andrew’s hand cups Will’s fingers and presses them to his lips.

“I heard this is not the only Earth. There are hundreds, thousands of Earths. Hundreds and thousands of you’s and me’s.”

“Do you think there is another you and me lying in a Chippewa Falls somewhere looking at the stars?”

_Lifetimes away._

A noise startles Will. The memory fades. Andrew’s face slips away again, a reflection marred by ripples in time. A man, naked from the waist up walks onto the upper promenade. For a moment, Will thinks the man is going to jump. He leans farther than is safe, reaching for the water below.

Will never finds out what happens to the man. Just as he is about to call out to someone, the officer on patrol yells at him.

“Oy, you’re not supposed to be up here. This is the first class deck.”

Without another glance at the man on the upper promenade, he gathers his sketchbook and runs inside.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where Hannibal finally meets Will...  
> All dialogue shamelessly remixed from James Cameron's Titanic screenplay (http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Titanic.html).
> 
> Also, I have to apologize for the history connoisseurs. The real Titanic sailed in 1912 and WWI began in 1914, but in this fic the Titanic sails in 1918. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

_The ship has docked in Cherbourg. It is painful to be so close, yet so far. I have half-mind to run away. But I am beginning to feel the weight of my chains. My obligations,_ he wrote in his diary and threw the damned thing into the ocean afterwards. It dived in a parabolic arc and sunk out of sight.

“What was that, Hannibal?” Charlotte asked when he came inside. She was at the escritoire writing wedding invitations.

“A gull,” he replied and lit a cigarette. Outside the sky was a bruised purple and the lights of Cherbourg glittered like some magical floating city.

Charlotte’s eye brows wrinkled. She lowered her pen and straightened the stack of letters. Every action was done with a sharp, disapproving sound. Then she walked over to her fiancé, touched his cheek and plucked the cigarette from his hands.

“You _know_ I don’t like that, Hannibal.” There was gravity in the _know_ , a barely detectable message of the power she held over him.

She knew he understood it and her upper lip curled.

She took the ashtray and pressed the cigarette stub into glass. He watched the embers flicker. He had hurt a woman before.

She turned to face him and he exhaled the smoke into her face, picked up the smoldering cigarette and flicked a few ashes on her dress.

“Then I suggest you go somewhere else.”

He might have as well slapped her across the face. Charlotte’s cheeks flushed crimson. Without saying a word, she turned and left the room. Hannibal continued to gaze at the purple sky. One had to be happy even for small victories. With those thoughts, he picked up his bowler hat from the table and excited the room.

\--------------------

Will Graham sharpens his pencil and turns over a new leaf in his sketchbook. Perched on the upper deck, he has the perfect view of the first class reception room and the valet, who is dozing off in the corner, blissfully unaware that he is being sketched. A sudden racket from the entrance ramp startles both of them. Will drops his pencil and the valet bumps his head against the door.

He gets on all fours to grope for his pencil and then he sees her. A woman , a sturdy matron decked in the latest French _haute couture_ is climbing up the stairs, carrying two of her own suitcases and a bag. She is wearing a heavily padded purple traveling dress and a hat whose brims are even wider than she is.

A gangly valet runs after her.

“Let me take those for you Mrs. Brown,” he pants as she reaches the atrium.

“I wasn’t going to wait for you on the dock all day, son,” she says with a smile and then thrusts the suitcases into his arms. His legs almost buckle under the weight.

“Here, take them the rest of the way, if you think you can manage. It’s suite 23 C.”

Will chuckles at the sight. He is still on all-fours. The pencil is lodged into the nook between the railing and the wooden paneling of the deck.

“Excuse me, you must have misplaced this.”

The voice is coming from somewhere above. Not your regular American English drawl or rain-sodden English English, but something rich and heavy, carefully articulated and exotic.

Will gets up clutching the pencil between the thumb and forefinger.  

It takes a long moment to take in the sight in front of him. The man is tall and dark, his hair combed in the fashion of the day, his maroon and red suit expertly cut and tailored, a bowler hat shielding his face. But that is not what Will sees. It is his particular gift and curse to see beyond the shallows, project onto people emotions, memories, things that exist only in the possible. The man is a half-remembered dream, an incomplete sentence. His eyes ask a question and his mouth is a thin, teasing arc like an intriguing thought left hanging in the air.

The man extends the sketchbook toward Will and repeats,

“You must have misplaced this.”

The face flickers in his memory and suddenly Will realizes this is the same man he saw contemplating suicide on the promenade.

He avoids the stranger’s eyes, embarrassed at knowing something so intimate about the other. The sketchbook is still between them. Will clasps its leather binding with his right hand and mutters a thank you. The stranger smiles, tips his hat and walks away.

\----------------------------

The sound of hot tea poured from Meissen china was her favorite sound in the world, decided Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick. She moved the plate of macaroons toward her new acquaintance, Alana Bloom, Countess of Brandenburg.

“I hear your daughter has made quite a match,” the countess offered with a warm smile and took a macaroon.

“Yes, well,” the Mrs. paused. It was less than an ideal match for her darling Charlotte, but there were _extenuating_ circumstances. She wondered how much of these circumstances she wanted to reveal to the countess, “ we were hoping for someone from the British noble houses or the Austrian.”

“ Hannibal Lecter is the Count of Svelgates, a respectable noble house in Lithunia and in possession of a wealthy property, which…”

“Has been completely decimated by the war,” the Mrs. interrupted the countess. “He has hardly anything except the clothes on his back.”

She replaced the china cup with a clink and laughed.

“Oh no, I think we had to pay for those too.”

The countess raised her eyebrows at the rudeness of the tone, but said nothing. Before the Mrs. had a chance to continue discussing the “merits” of her future son-in-law, there was a knock on the door.

“Are you expecting someone?”

The Mrs. shook her head.

“Trudy, the door please.”

A slightly disheveled and tearful Charlotte stepped in. Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick’s first instinct was to hide her daughter from the watchful eyes of the countess. The woman was more intelligent than she had given her credit for and soon would put one and one together.

“Countess Brandenburg, this is Charlotte, my daughter.”

They exchanged the necessary pleasantries after which the countess saw it fitting to excuse herself from the family drama. (“Do forgive me, Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick, but I promised I would accompany Madeline Astor for an evening walk”).

“So, what is it?” Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick inquired after Trudy closed the door. She sunk back into the chesterfield and tutted. “You know you cannot just run in like some common kitchen maid while I’m having important guests.”

Charlotte sniffed.

“Hannibal is impossible.” She walked over to the chair vacated by the countess and sat down. “ I don’t think this marriage you have planned will work.”

Mrs. Canvedish van Berwick bit a macaroon and chewed viciously.

“It will, because it has to, silly girl. May I remind you that he won’t be the first one between your sheets?”

Charlotte blushed at the memory.  

“And now,” she said and leaned over to wipe Charlotte’s tears with her handkerchief, “we have a dinner party to dress for.”

\---------

Happiness manifests itself in the same way in all people, but boredom comes in thousands of different flavors, he thought and forced a smile.

_An ugly little twist of the facial muscles. Like a dog baring its fangs._

“How do you do, Mr. Ismay. You’re ship- she’s a true wonder.” The words got tangled with his tongue. There had been a time when little lies like this came easily. He extended his hand toward the burly walrus.

The walrus clasped it. A nonchalant grasp one gave unimportant acquaintances and little-cared-for friends.

“Fine. And you are?”

“Oh dear, where are my manners,” Charlotte gasped. She slipped her hand into his (a little gesture she was quite _fond_  of). “This is my fiancé, Hannibal Lecter, Count of Svelgates.”

It was two o’clock. They were in the Palm Court, the first class restaurant on the upper deck. A glittering sunlight peeked through the French windows. It should have given the entire dining room a light and breezy air, Hannibal thought, but already the atmosphere was fetid, heavy with the haze of social hypocrisy and vanity that was always present on these outings.  He was surrounded by Charlotte, the walrus, a spindly graying man by the name of Thomas Andrews who had the appearance of a gentleman, but the air of a dusty old science encyclopedia, Mrs. Margaret Brown, who looked more like a purple steam engine than a genteel lady (which, as her speech revealed she most certainly was not), the renowned German psychiatrist Dr. Katz and his wife Mrs. Katz ( _her eyes kept darting to Thomas Andrews)_ and Charlotte’s mother.

“So, Mr. Andrews, this whole beauty is your creation?”Mrs. Katz inquired.

It was clear in the way he fiddled with his breadstick, Thomas Andrews was a man who shunned the spotlight.

“Well, my office did the drawings and the calculations, but Mr. Ismay here is the one who brought her to life.” He nodded in the general direction of Bruce Ismay.

Margaret Brown picked up on his shyness and jabbed her sharp tongue right at it.

“And why is it that men always refer to ships as ‘she’? Is it because they think all women have a wide rear?”

The table erupted with laughter. Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick gave the cold little smile she usually reserved for her society foes. This woman was new money and new money always had an unpleasant (or should one say, uncultured) smell.

Hannibal drank the Sauvignon. Expensive, but utterly uninspiring.

“I’m curious about the name _Titanic._ ”

The table fell silent. His rich accent was like an exotic dessert, unfamiliar and seductive, and it made whatever he had to say quite irresistible.

_“_ Yes that was all me, “ the walrus interjected. “I wanted to convey size, and safety and luxury.”

“You would be interested in the writings of a certain Dr. Freud,” Mrs. Katz remarked with a mischievous tinkle in her voice. “He has some very interesting ideas about men and their preoccupation with size.”

Thomas Andrews chocked on his breadstick, Ismay looked positively mortified and Charlotte and the Mrs. covered their mouths with their hands at such _vulgarity._ Only Molly Brown laughed.

“Well said, Mrs. Katz. Well said,” she tittered and clasped her dessert spoon.

Hannibal savoured the tension around the table. It was time to stir the issue some more.

“But surely you are familiar with hubris and the Greek tragedies, Mr. Ismay,” he continued.

The silenced encouraged him. Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick took a large swig of her dessert liquor.  This son-in-law was proving to be a real loaded pistol and he was about to fire right into the midst of a crowd of people she wanted to please.

“Whenever any of the Greek heroes presumed to build something they thought godlike or large, the gods promptly punished them for hubris,” he paused for the effect and continued. “Usually with a calamity of one sort or the other.”

“Hannibal!” Charlotte hissed from between gritted teeth.

“Do excuse me.”

He threw the napkin on the chair and left the table.

“Now really, I do apologize for his behavior,” Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick whispered. “He has not been himself since his family died.”

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal's depression deepens as the Titanic whisks him further and further away from home. Luckily he has Will Graham to carry him away from the edge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: deals with suicide. If you are uncomfortable reading about such themes, please click away now. 
> 
> Also, un-betaed and quite probably has a ton of errors. I still can't get over the Hannibal finale....the feels

 

Drawing in many ways is like being a light. He allows himself to see people and then captures their shadow. Takes life and flattens it on paper. Makes lines and arcs. Under the mellow caress of the late afternoon sun, Will is drawing a girl playing with her doll. He smells the acrid smoke of cheap cigarettes. It is Tommy Ryan, an Irish immigrant. They became friends over cold ham sandwiches and pints of beer in the third class bar the day before yesterday. Tommy looks into Will’s sketchbook and humphs with approval.

“One day I’m gon be walkin down the street and am gon see one of yer drawings in some fancy arse museum and am gonna say I knew that bloke when he had non but tha’ clothes on his back.”

Bjorn, the burly Swede who shares Will’s cramped cabin nods in agreement.

“Ja.”

Will laughs and mutters something about “pieces of paper with some lines”.

There is a pleasant breeze on the deck. They make their final stop in Queenstown that morning and now there is nothing but the wide expanses of the blue horizon for the better part of three days.

He raises his gaze to check on a few lines and then he sees the man who gave him his sketchbook. He is on the upper promenade, leaning heavily on the railing. For a moment, he lets his gaze rest on the man for longer than is necessary and thinks about how he would draw him. Heavy lines to capture the tall majestic figure, broad shoulders. Tender lines about the face.   The man takes out his watch and examines it.

Tommy and Bjorn notice Will’s gaze and exchange meaningful looks.

“You’re about as likely to get next to him as you gon have fireworks flying out of yer arse, “ Tommy says. All three of them continue watching the scene. A young woman (flaming red hair, brilliant green dress) approaches Hannibal and places a hand on his shoulder. The man flinches and turns.

\------------------

“Hannibal?”

Ripples of hate ran through his body, but he had no choice. Despite himself he had to admit, there was something endearing in the high pitched voice of his fiancée, something affectionate in the way she stroked his shoulder. She did not seem angry at the minor social explosion he had just detonated at Palm Court.

“Forgive me, Charlotte,” he said. “The food was giving me indigestion.”

“Or perhaps the company?” she suggested. The sea breeze unwound a few strands of curled red hair from her coiffure and played with them. He found the imperfection seductive.

“The company too.”

He continued to stare at the ocean. It was a quarter past three. An hour just like any other during the day, but unwillingly the watch transported him back to the manor house at Svelgates. He remembered Mischa’s delighted face when he opened the parcel under the Christmas tree.

_“Mama says you are always late,” she laughed. “Now you won’t have an excuse, Hannibal.”_

If one looked at it properly, it was an unbecoming little thing, all brass and silver, arranged in knobs and swirls. But it was the last tether, the last anchor to the ever gone yesterday. Like some cruel imitation of the memory, Charlotte said,

“Mama says you have to put the past behind you. We cannot have you sulking about like this when the social season starts.”

She had a real talent for irritating people, she did.

“We all carry the past with us.”

“And you should let yours go.”

Anger boiled within him and bubbled over. He thought of bloody sheets and rapid cuts and gleaming knife edges. And of the treacherous stairs of the New York townhouse. And stormy outings on the family yacht.

She took his hand, but he jerked it away. She retaliated. Her gloved hand seized the watch, and with a few determined steps she walked to the railing and flung it over.

“And I mean that literally,” she said and left him.

Incapacitated by anger and shock, he stood like an ancient tree about to be cut down and stared at the railing over which she had flung the last memory of happiness he had.

\-----------------------------

The three of them watch as the man and the woman argue in sharp rapid jabs of hands and elbows. Then the woman takes something from the man’s hands and flings it over the railing of the upper promenade. It dives into the clear blue air and lands on the edge of the lower deck. Will drops down his sketchbook and reaches for the object on the precipice of plunging into the Atlantic.  But before he can grab the silver chain, a steward attending to the first class dogs walks past. His leg nudges the watch and pushes it into the water.

When he returns to his sketchbook, the man has disappeared. “Look at them first class dogs taking a shit on our deck,” Tommy Ryan says and lights another cigarette, mockingly tipping his hat to the steward. “A little reminder so we don go and forget our place in this world.” Bjorn nods in agreement, though Will suspects Tommy’s accent is as good as a foreign language for him.  He takes up the sketchbook, but the faint connection of shadows and arcs he felt a moment before is gone. Now Will Graham thinks about the man and the soft dark shadows he will draw around his frame.

\---------------------

“I am not to be disturbed,” he whispered to the maid dusting the Picasso in the salon and closed the doors to the bedchamber. He lay on the bed and stared at the ornate faux-Michelangelo seraphim on the ceiling. Was that what heaven was like? Then he laughed at the ridiculous path his thoughts were taking. If heaven existed, he would never find out.

His earthly sins were like rocks tied to his neck. Like rocks dragging him deeper and deeper into the ocean. He got up from the bed and flung open the door to the private promenade. The air outside was pleasantly chilly. He lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke and the memory of the watch that now lay at the bottom of the ocean just like Mischa lay at the bottom of some unnamed grave near the burning remains of his home.

And then he retched into the ocean for he knew that to be a lie. Mischa was right here with him, within him. He retched again. His shaking hands dropped the cigarette and it dove into the ocean like a dying firefly. He wanted to follow it, but then a voice spoke from behind him.

“Is my lordship not feeling well?” The voice was deep and unfeminine, rough around the edges and liquid warm within. Someone walked over to him and caressed his hair while he emptied the contents of his stomach over the railing again. It was a familiar smell (did all the whorehouses in France really insist on the same perfume?), sweet and heavy, the kind that promised to forgive all of the carnal sins that were about to happen.

Hannibal turned and looked into the pleasant blue eyes, the long black hair and the generous lips.

“I was told you were upset,” the man continued and placed his cool hand on Hannibal’s burning cheek.

_By whom? Hannibal thought._

And laughed at the image of the burly bodyguard Crochard explaining his master’s sentimental state.  The other man pulled away just slightly and smiled at Hannibal.

“I see my method is working.”

He extended one long finger and wiped a tear from Hannibal’s cheek.

Hannibal nodded. “It is.”

The paid lover looked a novelist’s description of a poet, large wide eyes that were attractive yet glum, long hair that curled about his shoulders, high cheekbones. He was also completely naked. His skin white, two long scars crisscrossing his chest. And then Hannibal could no longer look.

He pushed the man into the master bedroom and kissed him with a fevered violence that made everything appear in shades bloody red and bruised purple. The man chuckled and sucked the tender hollow just below the neck.

_N’arretes pas._

Well trained fingers found Hannibal’s belt and then the buttons of his trousers. The same hands began unbuttoning his shirt, but in his urgency Hannibal ripped the remaining buttons and listened as the pearly rain skittered about the empty master bedroom.

He traced the white skin on the neck with his tongue, placed kisses, tentatively then hungrily on the mouth of this unknown stranger. The man wrapped his fingers about his chin and placed his index finger on Hannibal’s mouth.

“No, my lordship, today it is my turn.”

He pushed Hannibal onto the bed and caressed his way down from Hannibal’s chest to his stomach and to the bulge that was protruding beneath the tails of the torn shirt. The expert fingers trailed up and down his length.

Time curled and he let go of the specters in his mind. Mischa, the old house at Svelgates, his mother and father, who he barely remembered. Flashes of other faces passed his mind in the moments of ecstasy, before everything disassembled, melted and became the steady pulse of pleasure.

Hannibal woke up in a bath of perfume and the aftershave of love making. For a few moments he watched the quiet, tender breath of his onetime lover. Then he tenderly pressed a pillow to the man’s face and drove the poniard between his ribs. A red flower bloomed on the white skin. Little snakes erupted from its petals and raced toward the stomach, toward the ribs, pooled on the sheets.

“Crochard, I demand you let me into this room at once.”

Hannibal froze. An unexpected guest had chosen the most unfortunate time to call upon him.

“Mademoiselle, his grace gave explicit instructions not to be disturbed before dinner.”

“Well for heaven’s sake, it is dinner time and we are already unfashionably late.”

Crochard watched amused as the young mistress paced about the door. The gravity of the situation (for Crochard was fully aware what was going on in the room) was so precarious it was almost funny. He thought he saw her mind jumping through one hoop after the other, making conclusions.

“I demand you tell me this instant who is accompanying him in that room.”

Crochard frowned. He had not given her enough credit, but just then the door opened and his master stepped out fully dressed for dinner.

“Charlotte darling , “ he drawled, “did I just hear you insinuating something mildly insulting about a completely innocent afternoon nap?” And before she had a chance to react, he slid his hand into her arm like a fisherman sliding a bait worm on a hook, and guided her out of the room and away from the body that lay in a puddle of blood on the bed.

 

\----------------

“Hannibal,” the voice demanded across the table, “you look much better, son.” It was Margaret Brown. She had changed from her purple outfit into an overly loud red dress with pleats and ruffles that gave her an air of an overly puffy paradise bird. Despite her rough cut manners, her concern was genuine. The rest of them wore polite veneers. He smiled at their diamonds and gold and fur and then settled himself next to Charlotte.

“Yes, much better, thank you Mrs. Brown. All due to the attention of my lovely fiancée.” He kissed the white silk gloves. The black ostrich feather on Charlotte’s head shook as she tittered in mock embarrassment.

The waiter was hovering to their left ready to take an order.

“Could you please ask the chef to prepare some pike garnished with beets, sour cream and gabbage?” Hannibal said to the waiter.

“Is that a dish from the Lithuanian cuisine, your grace?” asked the Countess of Brandenburg.

He was about to answer, when Charlotte interrupted him.

“Hannibal, I wish you would try something American. How will you make the transition to your new home, when you insist on holding on to your old one.”

“I think we will both have lamb, rare and with mint sauce,” she said to the waiter and placed the napkin in her lap. “You do like lamb, don’t you dear?”

Margaret Brown frowned.

“You’re going to chew his meat for him too are you, Charlotte?”

The countess snorted into her wine glass. Charlotte pretended not to hear the overly rude red ostrich sitting to her right, but Hannibal merely looked ahead as if nothing had happened. Time jarred like the cogs of a poorly oiled machine and he caught himself slogging through countless minutes of pointless debating (“ _I am so shocked at the new dresses from France. The French and their décolleté!”_ ), (“Yes, _my company is_ q _uite appalled at the movement to unionize. The workers are draining us!”_ ), (“ _Do you play polo in Lithuania, Hannibal?”)._ He felt as though his life began and ended many times over during the course of the dinner. During dessert (some sort of caramelized confection, which Charlotte claimed was haute de mode in the more refined circled of the New York elite), he was lulled into a deep calm. He had ended others. And then the answer was clear in his mind. He was surprised he had not thought about it earlier.

\--------------------

Will Graham looks at the stars and waits for the world to shift into the present tense. For the evening wind to heighten his senses, for his nose to smell the whispering tales the ocean writes in the breeze. For a brief instant he wonders about all of the lives the sea has claimed. The horror and pain of the countless of sailors who have succumbed into the arms of the ocean. She is not a gentle lover.

Then he hears something else in the hum of the waves and the machinery of the ship. The slipping of expensive evening shoes, the sound of cufflinks grazing the metal railing.

He props himself on his elbows and sees an outline of a man taking hold of the railing and climbing over. Horror and panic mix in his mind and he can do nothing but watch in silence as the man grabs the railing and stares into the abyss below.

\-------------

Hannibal Lecter spread his arms and knotted his fingers into the white metal. Below him was the ocean. Between them a surely fatal number of feet. He read the inscription- white letters on the black  hull – _Titanic._ How fitting that this would be his unofficial epitaph.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The edge is seductive, but there is something in the eyes of the stranger that is even more alluring. Hannibal reconsiders his decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: deals with suicide. If you are in any way uncomfortable with such themes, please click away now. 
> 
> Thank you so much everyone for reading and commenting. Your wonderful comments are the best encouragement a fanfic writer could hope for. I just hope that the coming chapter(s) do not disappoint you. As always, yours humbly and gratefully,  
> Winterflower.

 

For a moment, the present slips into the past and he recalls distant memories-some real, some fabricated.

Death, he writes in his pathology notebook as a young medical student, is an abscess, to be punctured and examined so that the doctor can gain intimate understanding of the most profound driving agent of the universe.

Death, he thinks as he punctures a man’s ribcage with a kitchen knife, happens when one human being acquires the life of another.

Death, he wonders as he strokes the cold cheek of his onetime lover, is an absence.

Death was what it was not. First as a medical student and then as an artist of his _particular persuasion_ he had become an engineer with intimate knowledge of the cogs and gears that went into orchestrating it. He had held a man’s heart when it took its last convulsive beats, watched a woman’s irises cloud over as the cells in her eyes burst, examined the marbled art congealed blood painted on dead skin.

The biology was, by all means, known. It was the comprehension that still eluded him.

The wind hit his body and the churning of the propellers sprayed his face with salty droplets. He felt the blood pooling into his hands and imagined it to be heavy and dark, a nectar of life. The calm opioid haze that wrapped him promised everything would be better. He felt the betrayal of the body; the slipping of the sweaty palms, the fatigue in his legs.  Yet some primitive self-preservation instinct kept his fingers firmly around the railing and his eyes fixed on the dark emptiness spreading below.

Then he heard him. First the footsteps, then a hesitant voice.

“Don’t do it.”

\--------------------

“Please.” Will moves closer, extends his hand toward the man. The man’s face turns around, but it takes a moment for Will’s eyes to adjust to the darkness before he recognizes the prominent cheekbones and sleeked hair. The dark stranger who kindly picked up his sketchbook from the deck.

The man’s eyebrows knit together in a frown.

“Don’t come any closer,” he says and turns to look at the ocean. The foam bubbling above the massive propellers is mesmerizing.

Will looks around desperately, but the lower deck is deserted. Far above, he sees two figures huddled in the lookout balcony, but they are too far away to hear his screams.

He unbuttons his jacket and throws it on the deck.

_You shouldn’t go any farther, Andy. The ice is weak._

_What if I want to go through, Will?_

_No you don’t. The water’s gonna freeze your ass off._

_Come with me, Will._

This is not the first time he is talking someone away from the edge.

“Take my hand and I’ll pull you back in,” he says. The man turns toward him. There are droplets on his face. Tears or mist from the sea, Will cannot tell.

He sees the heavy weight in the other man’s eyes. And he can almost understand.

\--------------------------

The gentle tone of the voice stirred something he thought he had lost a long time ago. On the outside, this kind stranger spoke of a world entirely foreign to Hannibal. His cheap shirt and wrinkled trousers, tousled hair and an inelegant way of speaking were a beauty of a rough and uncultivated kind. Hannibal was a connoisseur of the elegant and beautiful; disposable lovers from upscale whorehouses that would put Michelangelo’s seraphim to shame, custom made clothes, books and intellectual debates on the minutiae of obscure theories. And yet he could not look away.

The cancerous weight that had taken residence at the bottom of his stomach began to dissolve as he took in the concern and kindness in the eyes of the stranger. The colour of washed out green, like linen bleached too many time. They did not judge or assume. They simply watched in silence, in empathy.

“My name is Will Graham, “ the man said and continued to hold out his palm.

“You should go back Will Graham. I have no wish to live any longer. Don’t get involved.”

But Will Graham knelt and untied his shoes.

And in the moment the present shimmered as if it was the past. Hannibal imagined himself in the embrace of the vast nothingness, surrounded by the ocean. He would look at the receding ship. See its thousands of lights suspended in the air like dew droplets on a spider web.

“I’m involved. I can’t walk away now,” Will Graham said and took off his shirt.

Self-sacrifice, even false, had the sweetest fragrance. It was a submission, a willingness to give a life to save another. The torso was naked and shivering, the eyes kind and compassionate and the hand outstretched.

“Do not be a fool, Mr. Graham. You will die.”

“I’m a good swimmer.”

“The fall alone will kill you.”

As he said the words, he realized that his dark fantasies of floating in the water and inhaling the crystalline starlight of the lonely sky would never come to be.

Will Graham was quiet. They both listened to the gentle hum. The ocean was composing a lullaby.

“It would hurt, no doubt,” he said looking over the railing and at the propellers. “But I’m more concerned with the cold.”

“The cold…” Hannibal savoured the word.

Will Graham was standing next to the railing, two feet away from Hannibal’s right hand. He saw the slight shiver, the trepidation of the Adam’s apple. For a brief moment, he longed for nothing else but to touch the man.

“I grew up in Chippewa Falls and one day my lov- my father took me ice fishing. Ice fishing is a kind of sport where you drill a hol-“

“Yes, I am aware of the meaning of the term,” Hannibal said rather impatiently.

“Of course, I’m sorry. You just don’t look very outdoors-y…Well, it was late February and he-my father that is- didn’t know the ice of the river had worn thin. He let me go too far and I was careless and fell through.” The water was a few degrees. It was like a thousand knives stabbed every part of my body. I wanted death-“

“As do I, Mr. Graham. You’ve entertained me on the eve of mine and I thank you for the story.”

His right hand slipped and he lost his balance for a moment. _Now, he thought._ But a gentle touch was all it took to stop him.

\-------------------------

“If you were going to do it, you would have done it already,” Will whispers and places his finger on the man’s left hand. 

“An interesting hypothesis,” the man says. His legs tremble.

“But if you’re still going to go through with it ,” Will says and continues stroking Hannibal’s fingers. “I’ll have to go after you. I can’t say I’m looking forward to that part.”

 He kicks off his right shoe and then his left shoe.

The man closes his eyes and a glinting teardrop falls on his cheek. He turns and takes Will’s hand. And in the same soft instant that their fingers lock, the man’s feet slip from underneath him and he plunges down tugging Will with him.

Will feels a sharp pain in his left arm, the cartilage grinding against the bone as the tendons and muscles support the weight of the grown man.

“I’ve got you,” he says. But his grip is slipping. Will’s eyes meet the other man’s brown ones. Perhaps they are pleading. He cannot tell.

“Help! Someone. Please!,” Will screams into the darkness and the pain inside is almost blinding. The evening gust swallows his words and carries them away into the sky.

\--------------------------------

Quartermaster Rowe and second officer Barton huddle against each other on the windy lookout balcony far above the lower deck. The quartermaster rubs his hands together in a futile attempt to generate heat.

“I’d fancy a hot cuppa with a shot of good ol’ scotch, right now,” he says.

“You and me. You and me,” the second officer agrees.

The wind wails, almost human.

“Did ya’ hear that, Rowe?”

“Hm…” the older man listens and then shakes his head. “Must be the wind playin’ tricks on you.”

“We’re supposed to be on the lookout for the damn icebergs not just freezing our asses,” Barton says and looks out into the distance. A faint mist obscures most of the view. “We sure could use the binoculars up here.”

 “Haven’t seen the bleeding buggers since Southampton,” Rowe replies.

The howl repeats and this time Barton can make out words. He looks over to the rear of the ship and then bolts down the ladder.

\---------------------

With one last ounce of strength, Will Graham fought the pain, grasped Hannibal’s outstretched hand with his uninjured right one and pulled.

In a quick moment, they tumbled to the deck. An entangled mass of clothing and body parts. Will Graham’s naked torso on top of Hannibal’s. His dislocated left shoulder jutting at an awkward angle. For what seems and eternity, they simply lay against the cold, damp wood, feeling each other’s weight.

“I told you the water is cold,” rasped Will. His lip was bloody where he had bitten it during the fall. Hannibal slid from underneath his naked chest and touched the injured shoulder.

“I’m fine, sir,” he began but Hannibal shushed him.

“Please stay still. ”

 

\---------------------------------

When second officer Barton arrives, the scene looks more or less like some violent version of   _in flagrante delico._  Without taking any further information of the offending sight,  Barton grasps the half-naked ruffian by his arms and yanks him away from the gentleman.

“What on God’s green earth is going on here?”

Rowe arrives behind him panting and clutching his chest.

 “Get the Master at Arms,” Barton says and Rowe sets off, jogging into the opposite direction as fast as his frozen feet will carry him.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor tends to Will's injured shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: I have 0% medical training, so my description of treating a dislocated shoulder is oversimplified and wrong. Please do not attempt this. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, everyone! I am completely overwhelmed by all of the feedback. Also criticism/negative thoughts are much appreciated.

Maybe it was the repelling smell of the cigars or the repelling tone of the after dinner talk in the gentlemen’s club, but something brought the memory back, as sharp and clear as a moving pictures reel.

 He recalled the pungent smell that assaulted his nose as if he were inhaling shrapnel and then the agonized screaming as skin began to melt into a blistered mess and eyes were burned to blindness. Death came close to him in the hastily dug trench near Verdun.

And it changed him. That encounter.

He closed his eyes again and saw himself in a broken hospital gurney some 20 miles south of the front line. He had lost his left ear and his loyalty. To commanders, lords and masters.

He watched Hannibal Lecter stir from the leather armchair. The bastard did a good job of pretending he was normal, but Crochard had cleaned enough of his bloody messes to realize that he knew nothing of the evil that lived in the man’s head.

“I need to step outside for a moment, J.J.” he said and patted John Jacob Astor on the back. Crochard stirred to follow him, but Hannibal waved him away.

“Go have some fun, Crochard. You look like you could use it.”

Crochard nodded.

_Keep an eye on him, Crochard. Protect him._

He had promised as much to Robert Lecter, but that was before he realized that perhaps Robert had meant _Protect others from him_.

Crochard opened the door to the deck and inhaled the evening air.

Of course, he was supposed to dispose of both of the bodies before the ship commenced it trans-Atlantic voyage. The first little gift had to be dumped at Cherbourg and the second somewhere right after Queensport. But Crochard had thought better.

They were well hidden.  No need to push the delicate sensibilities of some first class lady who happened to stumble upon the assaulting smell of decomposing French whores. Who knew, maybe he could put them to good use at a later date. After all Jean-Jacques Crochard was loyal to only one man. And his name was Jean-Jacques Crochard.

Crochard hummed happily and procured a pipe from his breast pocket. He lit it and walked the length of the deck, savoring the taste and listening to the shushing whispers of the waves. He passed the gymnasium, walked around the lifeboats and stopped.

If he did not have a pipe in his mouth, Crochard would have surely laughed at the scene unfolding in front of him.

\------------------------

Quartermaster Rowe returns with Colonel Gracie, who-upon witnessing the scene- demands that Rowe return back to the first class tea room and retrieve the Mrs. and Miss Cavendish van Berwick. Rowe mutters something under his breath, but resumes jogging back toward the first class entrance.

The blinding pain comes in sudden waves that cloud Will’s thinking. The skin on his chest is flushed with a blue hue, but he can hardly feel the cold through the hot burn of the humiliation. Second officer Barton procures a pair of hand cuffs and shackles him to the nearest railing. With his eyes firmly cast down, Will watches as the Colonel wraps a blanket around the man Will rescued. Then Quartermaster Rowe produces a glass of an amber coloured liquid and hands it to the man.

The quartermaster nods in Will’s direction, and the Colonel, with a few large strides, walks over.

“So you thought it was a good idea to rob-“

He is cut off mid-sentence by the sound of the door opening. The air implodes with the high pitched voice of a woman in a red and black evening dress.  She rushes into the arms of the man Will rescued. Two of three older women- one a spindly insect in glittering green, the other a beauty with black curls- gasp at the sight of Will’s naked chest. _Such vulgarity! And on the deck of the Titanic._ But the third one-the steam engine in red- merely looks concerned.

Embarrassed, second officer Barton hastily picks up Will’s shirt and drapes it over his chest. _To protect the delicate sensibilities of the ladies._

\---------------------------

_Apparently, even attempted suicide is a social occasion on this damned ship_ , Hannibal thought when he saw the towering figures of Crochard and Colonel Gracie and the mass of silk and diamonds that was Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick, Alana Bloom- the Countess of Brandenburg-, Margaret Brown and Charlotte.

Charlotte promptly detached from the other ladies and rushed into his arms.

“Oh, darling, how awful! Did this-“ she tried to find a word suitably nasty yet polite enough for a lady to say-“ ghastly ruffian attempt to rob you?” She trailed her fingers up and down his chest as if feeling if anything was missing. Then she cupped his face and stared into his eyes. _You almost lost your little royal trophy, Charlotte, he thought and allowed her to trail a finger on his cheeks._ A tear dripped down her cheek.

“I was so worried.”

Then she gave Will another look over taking in in his dislocated arm and his bloody lip.

“You fought back, my brave dear.”

Hannibal exhaled into the plumage of her ornate evening head dress. The reality of what he had been about to do (or what he would have done had this stranger by the name of Will Graham not  pulled him back) washed over him like a cold wave.

Meanwhile the Master at Arms joined the Colonel in interrogating the _ghastly ruffian._

\-----------------

The scene begins to blur, he feels as though the deck is buckling in waves of wood beneath his feet. The pain from his left arm is now a constant loud blare in his mind.

“What do you think you were doing, you scum, laying hands on Count Lecter?”

The Colonel grabs Will’s injured arms and yanks. Screams pierce the whispers of the waves.

“Colonel Gracie,” says a composed voice from behind them. “He was simply trying to save me. And you should be careful with that arm unless you wish to cause this brave young man lasting damage.”

“Save you?” Charlotte raises a quizzical eyebrow.

“Yes. I was intrigued by Mr. Andrew’s eloquent explanation of the function of the propellers and wanted to see this feat of ingenuity myself. In my excitement, I leaned too far over the railing and … ah, fell. I have to thank my stars that Mr. Will Graham was taking an evening walk at the most opportune moment.”

“Well in that case,” the Master at Arms said and unshackled Will’s right arm. Hannibal took the blanket off his shoulders, walked to the railing where his savior was standing and draped it gently over the shivering figure of Will Graham.

“I suppose a thank you is in order, Mr. Graham,” the Mrs. said. Unlike the other ladies, who looked at Will with expressions of admiration, she merely sniffed and turned to walk away when the Colonel intercepted her.

“Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick, perhaps a little something for the boy,” he whispered into her ear, but the gust of wind picked up his words and sprinkled them around the deck like little echoes.  

The Mrs. nodded and motioned for Crochard (who had until now remained in the shadow of a lifeboat) to approach.

“A twenty should do it, Crochard.”

Hannibal laughed. “Is that the market price for a life these days?”

Charlotte blushed and the Countess and Mrs. Brown exchanged a look of pursed lips and knotted eyebrows.

“Well I suppose, you could joins us for dinner tomorrow, Mr. Graham.” Then the Mrs. turned toward her daughter and motioned her and the other ladies to follow.

“Ladies, I believe our tea is getting cold.”

In one loud rustle of silk and lace, the four ladies made their way toward the entrance. Colonel Gracie held the door for them.

For a moment, the party of men remaining on the deck listened to the silence punctured by Will’s heavy breathing.

“Office Barton, the shoulder of this young man needs urgent medical attention,” Hannibal spoke to the officer.

 His hands were still firmly around the blanket.

 “The third class doctor is tending to a sick man. Should I wake Dr. Parsons?”

“No need, please take me to the infirmary. I am more than capable of dealing with a dislocated shoulder.”

Hannibal nudged Will forward. As they were making their way past Crochard, the bodyguard took out his pipe and commented,

 “His grace fell overboard and with all that you still had time to take off your shirt and jacket and untie your shoe laces.”

Will said nothing, but Hannibal laughed.

“You are perceptive, Crochard,” he paused and added. “But you do know that curiosity did kill the cat.”

Whose curiosity, Crochard wondered. Yours or mine? Or perhaps Mr. Graham’s?

\-------------------------

Second officer Barton leads Will, the man who everyone refers to as _Count Lecter_ and his burly bodyguard through the first class hallway, past Palm Court and the library. They stop next to a double door with the letters “Infirmary” inscribed at the top. Barton unlocks the door.

“I’ll wait for you outside.”  Crochard attempts to follow, but _Count Lecter_ places an arm on his shoulder and says firmly, “I will manage Crochard. You should attend to the ladies. “

 And with that he ushers Will inside and closes the door to the infirmary behind him.

The infirmary is cramped. An unmistakable air of disinfectant lingers about the three hospital beds. In the far left corner, stands a medicine cabinet, the little brown phials glinting in the faint light of a lonely bedside lamp.

“Please sit, Mr. Graham.”

_Count Lecter_ pushes him onto the hospital bed nearest to the medicine cabinet.

“Just Will, please.” _Count Lecter_ smiles at him. Will’s stomach fills with a hundred fluttering butterflies when looks into the handsome face of the man.

_Count Lecter_ lights another bedside lamp, removes his cufflinks and rolls up his sleeves. In the mellow blue light and the placid silence, _Count Lecter_ ’s every move is amplified and melodic. Will glances at the other man’s arms, traces the bulging blue rivulets from his wrist to where the arm disappears into the expensive folds of his shirt.

“Do you have a name Doctor?” he asks.

“I do.” _Count Lecter_ says and unwraps the blanket from around Will. Waves of embarrassment and pain mix in his mind, as the man brushes his fingers against Will’s injured shoulder. “I am Hannibal Lecter, Count of Svelgates.”

“That is quite a moniker, Doctor. I might have to get you to write that down for me.”

Hannibal laughs despite himself.

“Have I heard that one before!”

Then the smile melts off his face and his fingers probe the shoulder.

\--------------------

Hannibal’s fingers explored the jutting shapes below the skin. The head of the humerus had slipped from its socket in the scapula.

“I’m afraid the shoulder is dislocated, Will. I need you to be completely still while I move it back into correct alignment. “

“Do it, Doctor.”

Hannibal moved toward Will until Will’s cheek rested against his abdomen. He observed the pale white exposed neck that melted into the jugged line of the spine. A few wisps of brown hair curled at the nape of the neck. For a brief moment, Hannibal wanted nothing more than to kiss the sweet hollow between the shoulder and the neck.

“Hold on to my waist, Will. With your right hand.” The tentative manner with which Will snaked his right wrist to the back of Hannibal’s back caused a wave of arousal to flush over him. He forced concentration. With one practiced move, he pushed the head of the humerus back into the socket. Will uttered a muffled scream into Hannibal’s abdomen.

“Thank you,” he whispered as Hannibal helped him pull his shirt back on and placed the left arm into a sling.

Hannibal hummed and opened the medicine cabinet. His head ducked between the shelves and in a moment he produced a bottle of iodine and a wad of cotton.

\----------------------

Will does not even notice the foul smelling green liquid, because _his_ fingers are gently clasping his chin and turning his face toward the light. He dives into the brown eyes of the Doctor and in an instant he is suffused with the weight of the sorrow they possess.

The Doctor’s fingers touch his broken lip with the wad of cotton dipped in iodine and he feels the electrical screams of a thousand nerve cells as the antiseptic burns through his skin. But he does not think of the pain, but of the contact of skin on skin. The eyes that look upon him not with disdain, but with kindness and something more. Hunger perhaps?

Of course he means to say thank you, but his tongue refuses.

“ You didn’t have to do this,” he finally rasps.

Hannibal’s bare finger lingers on his lip a little longer than proper. He feels the slight shift of muscles. A ripple of tension.  

“I didn’t.” Hannibal agrees and places a cork on the mouth of the iodine bottle.

“So why did you?”

“To thank you.  And to make sure you keep my secret.”

Will stands up and moves to the door, but before he can open it, he hears a faint click. The Doctor turns off the last lamp and plunges the infirmary into darkness. Will hears the approaching steps, feels the faint breeze, smells diamonds, champagne and money. The Doctor grasps Will’s uninjured arm and pulls him close to his face. His breath is hot and caressing on Will’s exposed neck. His forefinger is making gentle circles on his arm. Will shudders. Maybe he imagines everything, but the Doctor’s lips brush the nape of his neck, so briefly one might think it was an errand breeze, and then the door is open. A sliver of light enters the room, but the Doctor is already gone.   

\------------------

Crochard observed from a distance as his flustered master excited the infirmary followed by this Will Graham. He lit his pipe again and mused, the dead cat was surely not he or his master. But this poor bastard who happened to save the monster.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal takes a look at the past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for being so supportive!

Hannibal shut the door to his bedroom, threw open the door to the private promenade and leaned on the railing. In and out. In and out. He tried to steady his breathing. In the silence of the night, a memory unfolded.

\-------------------

It all begins with a death. They are in the library –Lady Murasaki (the wife of Uncle Robert) reading a novel on the chaise longue and Hannibal studying diagrams of the heart at the escritoire by the window.

There is a loud bang from the apartment upstairs. The windows tinkle and a small glass bird standing on chest topples over. One of its wings breaks off and falls to the floor.

“Mon Dieu,” Lady Murasaki gasps- more for the broken ornament than noise from upstairs. Her book falls to the floor and she leans over to pick up the broken bird. Hannibal flinches and looks up from diagram depicting the left ventricle and the mitral valve. Uncle Robert, his reading glasses slightly lopsided on his thin face, walks in.

« Que s'est-il passé, Robert? »

Lady Murasaki studies his face and waits for an explanation.

But he merely shrugs and walks past her to the window. Hannibal follows him and looks at the view spreading beneath. They live in an apartment close to Montmartre, overlooking a park of blooming chestnut trees. It must be late spring or perhaps early summer, for the air is heavy with exhaust and fetid decay. He feels Lady Murasaki’s gentle perfume caressing his nose as she approaches them.

The three of them observe as a black police car pulls over. Two policemen and a man, who Hannibal assumes is the detective, step out.

After a few minutes, Uncle Robert leaves for dinner with an associate, Lady Murasaki retires to her bedroom, but Hannibal remains by the window. He walks to the hallway and opens the door of the apartment. The hall is silent. Only a faint echo sprinkles the words of the policemen from upstairs. He closes the door and sneaks upstairs.

The apartment of Monsieur and Madame Fontaine exudes luxury. The policemen have left the front door- a heavy mahogany affair carved with Moorish geometric patterns- ajar. Hannibal steps inside and breathes in the musky smell of antique and dust. He steps over a toppled umbrella holder and a pair of white leather gloves. Their empty fingers are curled together as if an invisible hand is holding another. Hannibal walks past the foyer and rounds the corner to the bedroom. The detective and the two policemen are inside. Then he notices the three bodies; two on the bed and one on the floor beside the window.   

“He shot himself in the head after he killed his wife and her mistress,” the detective says. “Love is a disease, it is.” He shakes his head and fans his sweaty face with his cap.

“Monsieur Moreau, the morgue says they cannot accommodate any more bodies. They will send someone from Auteuil tomorrow, ” one of the police officers says with a slight tremble.

Moreau sighs and wipes his forehead.

 “Mon Dieu, they will have to be here until the morning.”

Then he turns and notices Hannibal.

“Out with you!”

In the dead of night, the detective’s words will not let him be. He lies in his bed suspended in the faint hum of the restless city. Finally, he caves in to curiosity and flings away his cover. He sits on his bed and listens to the soft susurration of sleepy breathing from the next room.

His bare feet make no sound on the carpet as he crosses the room and takes a scalpel, a large glass jar and – his eyes scan the old bookshelf before stopping on the lower shelf- an old retractor he bought from a graduating medical student.

He walks past Lady Murasaki’s bedchamber and for a moment his fingers reach toward the golden doorknob, brushing it with a wistful longing. Last night, she had fallen asleep on the chaise longue in the library. Her silk robe had slipped up, revealing a white sliver of skin. He had had to touch the skin, to feel the curve of the calf muscle and the fragile hardness of the tibia. And he longs to do that again, but the task at hand is more important. He opens the door into the hallway and climbs the stairs to the second floor.

The lock provides little resistance for his lock picking skills, and after a click, the door opens and he steps in with a little hesitation that comes from being in the presence of the dead. Though, he supposes, one cannot really call it a presence, more of an absence of the living. The air in the apartment is heavy and thick. When he inhales, he feels a lazy resistance around his nostrils, like stirring congealed cream. The smell of decomposing flesh assaults him, but as a student of anatomy and pathology he swallows it and proceeds to the bedroom.

The police have covered the bodies with white linens. He lifts the first sheet and gazes into the glassy eyes of Madame Fontaine. Her dark hair is spread around her thin face as if tossed by the wind and her lips are slightly parted, in apprehension or in anticipation of the kiss of a lover. He remembers her now. He had seen Madame Fontaine exit the building last week, tightening her shawl about her shoulders as if she was cold, although it had been a hot, humid day. She was appealing in the way women who lived through mirror and lipstick were, plain in their perfection. He covers her face and lifts the sheet off the body net to hers. The face-or what was left of it-must have belonged to Madame Fontaine’s lover. The nose has caved in into a purple flower of congealed blood, broken bone and putrefied skin. Monsieur Fontaine shot his wife’s lover in the face, a metaphorical as well as a physical killing.

Next to the window, lies the body of Monsieur Fontaine. The windowsill is dotted with a faint red mist and a black congealed pool spreads beneath his head. Hannibal removes the sheet and uses his scalpel to cut through the man’s suit and the skin of his chest. The bloating tissue oozes decomposing fluids as the sharp blade cuts a thin red line. Hannibal’s uses the retractor to draw apart the ribs and lets his fingers find the heart. He cuts through the arteries and with a tug, detaches it and pulls it out of the body.

The organ has never seized to amaze him. Heavy and swollen in his hands, pregnant with hatred and jealousy. Hannibal’s forefingers loop around the thick walls of the arteries and he brings the organ close to his nose.

\------------------------

Next week, he lingers in the dissection laboratory after pathology class. When the instructor has left, he slides a sample from Monsieur Fontaine’s heart under the microscope and observes the rectangular striations and the small dark eyes of the cell nuclei. He changes the magnification, applies dyes and rinses the tissue. But there is nothing out of the ordinary. No sign of malady or sickness.

“L'amour est une affection du cerveau”.  _Love is an affliction of the brain,_ his uncle says that evening during dinner.

“Well, one could hardly call Monsieur Fontaine insane,”  Lady Murasaki retorts. She moves the lait d’amande toward Hannibal and their fingers brush. An accident of the most seducing kind.

Robert swirls the Sauvignon under his nostrils, tentatively inhaling the smell of rain and salty summer sun.

“Insanity is invisible, darling.”

After dinner, Uncle Robert leaves for his club. Hannibal hears the front door close behind him as he studies the dissection diagrams of the kidney. An abandoned novel lies open on the chaise longue in the corner, its pages fluttering in the breeze from the open window. He leaves his anatomy books and walks over to pick it up.

_Lady Murasaki’s smell lingers on the pages._

He opens a new page and begins reading.

_Lord De Salles gazed at her long white fingers as they skirted across the keyboard. Mademoiselle Charlotte sat playing the chords of some mournful waltz oblivious to his presence until he laid his hand on her bare shoulder._

_The melody stopped and she uttered a brief shriek of surprise. He let his hands trail down, past the ruffles of her dress and lower below her neck, until he felt the two soft breasts. She sighed and the melody continued. He pushed into the dress and felt a rigid nipple that he caressed with his forefinger. Mademoiselle Charlotte leaned back against his body and he bent to take her lips into his mouth._

Hannibal feels the heat pooling between his legs.

_Lord De Salles knelt next to Mademoiselle Charlotte and lifted her skirts. He planted a kiss on her bare thigh and ran his fingers toward her –_

“Hannibal?” The voice that enters the library is soft and melancholy. He smells the faint vanilla and peach, a shy lust or perhaps a longing.  

“Why are you reading that?” Lady Murasaki’s fingers pry the book from his hands. He lets go reluctantly and grasps her wrist. The skin is a translucent sheet of paper and beneath run blue rivulets of blood. A scalpel’s edge away from death.

 _Love is an affliction of the brain_ , he thinks. _But the symptoms ravish the body like a fever._

“Do you think Monsieur Fontaine was crazy?” she whispers and runs a finger through his hair and down the nape of his neck.

“Yes,” he says. “But how else would you define love?”

His nose brushes her chin. A finger twirls around a stray lock of hair. Her hands brush the front of his trousers.

“ Tu es fou, Hannibal,” she exhales into his neck. “If we knew how to define love, there would be no need for art, poetry and music.”

Hannibal presses her into the bookshelf. His mouth explores the exposed neck, lips brushing the white skin, tracing a line from the chin to the collarbone. Her eyes are closed, her hands a weight against his chest. The tension in his stomach is nearly unbearable.

His fingers reach for the silken ties of her pelisse. The silken gown parts exposing two round white breasts.

“This isn’t right,” she whispers and wraps her hands around his face. His eyes meet hers and he sees the weight of something heavy and dark in them. The exposed, vulnerable flesh stirs a deep and troublesome longing within him. The fever erases the boundary or perhaps there never was one. In any case, he does not care. With a flick of his fingers, he slips the silken fabric off her shoulders.

_Like a fever. A crucible for the soul. To cleanse or to burn._

She pushes him onto the chaise longue, their mouths still entwined. Her fingers find their way inside, and gently brush along his length. The room is silent, but not still. In the inaudible melody of the evening breeze, the feverish music of flesh upon flesh unfolds, a restless dance of ripples on a mirror still lake.

Afterwards, they lie on the chaise longue for what feels like hours. He runs a finger along the curve of her neck and she does not protest.

“Do you think this is love?” she asks in a hushed whisper as his hand explores the flesh below her breasts. He touches her neck with his lips in response.  In a swift move, she stands up and walks to the open window. A faint veil of twilight has swallowed the sky and the pale light from the street lamp caresses Lady Murasaki’s silhouette with a ghostly pallor. Standing like that, naked and exposed, she seems like an afterthought, a pale imprint on a long faded photograph.

“If not this, then what?” he answers. The weight of his desire has hardly subsided. An explosive mixture simmers somewhere between his legs.

She turns to face him.

“This is lust.”

\--------------------------

It was peculiar that the memory of his brief dalliance with Lady Murasaki should come to him at this moment. He walked back into the bedroom, unbuttoned his shirt and poured a glass of cognac from the crystal decanter. And what else had she said?

_Lust is when the body takes over from the mind. Love is when the mind takes over the body. You don’t know the difference, Hannibal._

On the day he left Paris for Southampton, she had come to the railway station to say her farewells. They sat in the first class seats, her fingers drawing invisible swirls on his arm. Neither of them said anything. They had silently agreed to never mention the thing “that never happened”, but even now, a year later, the air between them crackled with unspoken tension. As the conductor hollered, “All aboard!”, she pressed a small leather pouch into his hand and kissed his cheek. And that was the last time he had seen her.

As the liquid tendrils of the cognac spread in a soothing wave though his body, Lady Murasaki’s face was replaced by the face of Will Graham. Hannibal leaned on the pillow and recalled the pressure of the other man’s hand taking a hold of his waist. People like Charlotte and her mother bored him with their transparency. Their hopes and dreams were like common garden moths pinned into a box, dead and dull, the dust gathering on their wings. But this Will Graham was like the memory of a long forgotten, yet familiar language. The cognac closed his eyes and he drifted into a pleasant slumber.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal discovers Will Graham's secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your encouragement everyone! Now that Hannibal is on hiatus, I feel like I'm starting to lose grip of this character... I don't know how to write him anymore.

The _Titanic_ at night is still, but hardly silent. As Will makes his way from the first class infirmary to the third class cabins five levels down, he feels the sway of the giant steel crèche. The newly minted steel moans slightly with each gentle lull of the waves. The lights in the corridor flicker, a slight bristle of yellow and dark. He pauses for a breath and inhales the sharp smells of paint and varnish. For the first time since their departure from Southampton, the solitude of his existence flows over him, like water splashing from a broken vase.

He closes his eyes. The events of the evening wrap around his mind like a thin yarn and he struggles to hold on to the most fragile of memories-the Doctor’s fingers brushing the nape of his neck. The feeling is nearly transparent, like smoke emanating from a snuffed out candle. He might have imagined the whole thing. After all, his imagination-his ability to make leaps into the minds of others is- He cuts the thought off before the sordid images shackle him to a night of horrors and nightmares.

He stumbles to the lower deck. The lights have been dimmed. A small buzzing sound reverberates in its cage of aluminium walls. A fly is hitting a lamp, an electric suicide. He checks the numbers on the cabins, searching for 320.

A familiar smell of clothes washed with cheap soap-the kind that looks like a grey slab of spit and snot- and stale ham sandwiches greets him. Bjorn is lying in his bunk in his sweat-stained cotton shirt and brown trousers (Will suspects he does not own any other clothes). Tommy is sitting on the edge of his bed, counting a pack of dog-eared, ale-eaten playing cards. Tommy nods to Will, picks up a little parcel wrapped in greasy paper and tosses it onto Will’s bunk.

“Ya missed dinner, Will.”

Will smiles in gratitude. He unbuttons his jacket and unties his boots with his right arm.  Tommy’s eyes brush over his bandaged arm and his broken lip, now stained green from iodine. In the dim glow of the room, Will sees the glint of curiosity in Tommy’s eyes, the slight curve of the lips about to utter a question.  A faint snore emanates from Bjorn’s bed and Tommy finally says,

“Did ya get into a brawl, Will-ham m’boy?”

Will wants to tell them everything. His tongue is already forming the words, designing the sentences, the story of how he saved a first class passenger (this mysterious doctor with a name longer than the Keystone Express railway). But the fingers on the nape of his neck. The feeling of the Doctor’s lean body against his cheek as the man slid his shoulder back into the socket. He swallows the words he is about to utter and nods with a mischievous smirk.

“Yeah.”

Tommy grins back at him.

“I bet it was over a pretty lass, wasn’t it, you rascal?”

“A pretty lad.” Bjorn murmurs.

“Coulna hear ya Bjorn?” Tommy whispers.

But Will hears him and smiles to the darkness.

\--------------

One of the reasons Hannibal bought the Picasso from a street vendor near Pont-de-Neuf was the shapes that his fiancée had termed “nebulous splotches”. It reminded him of an inexplicable state of mind, the kind of faint mist that clouded his inner voice when he thought about things infinite and complex. It reminded him of dreams.

If there was a thing that fascinated (and troubled him) more than the intricate biological cogs and gears of the living (or dying) human body, it was the mechanics of the dream. As a child, wrapped in the arms of his mother, he had imagined the dream as a little death. He recalled the nightly ritual of viscous heaviness that crept into his limbs as he lay on his down mattress. The sound of his mother’s voice reading from the _Fairytales of Brothers Grimm_. Although he might have imagined this, he remembered his mother’s hand touching his cheek, his forehead, his nose as if checking for a fever. And then her hand would press the lids of his eyes shut and he would dream. Those coloured shapes, like the colours of the light passing through dew-droplets on a blade of grass.

He had held onto that image-real or fabricated-of his mother’s pale hand pressing his eyes into a heavy slumber throughout his years as a war orphan in the care of Lady Murasaki and Uncle Robert. Until one Wednesday night in 1917. He was working in one of the large wartime hospitals in Giverny-sur-la-Seine. The days were filled with burned skin and blinded eyes, amputated legs and arms, the bloody porridge of shrapnel-shredded intestines. The faces of the young boys blended into one and after a week he stopped asking for their names. But he remembered _her_ in vivid detail.

She came into the hospital at night. He could not remember her actual face, but his mind replaced the missing details with the face of his mother. She wore a black coat and carried a red umbrella in her left arm. In her right arm, clutched tight against her chest, was a little bundle wrapped in a cashmere sweater.

He had looked at the infant in one of the empty rooms. The heat of the fever flashed through the premature little body. They had run out of sulfonamide the week before, the vessel carrying medication from Britain had been bombed just outside Calais. When he shook his head at her pleading question, he could not look at her face. Not because he felt empathy, but because she was like his mother. By the time dawn broke over the dome of Sacre-Coeur, blanching its white walls with a heavenly brilliance, the infant’s eyes were open and the body was cold. The burning fire had died. And so had the life.

And the mother who had sat the whole night next to the little cot, wrapped her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. She removed her black glove and pressed. Pressed on the face of the infant. Pressed on the open lids of his eyes. Pressed them shut.

After that night in 1917, he could no longer return to his own memory. The memory of the pale hand pressing on his eye lids. For he no longer saw it as his mother’s gentle hand pressing on his face. But as the hand of a mother of a dead infant pressing shut the eyes of her dead child.

Hannibal woke up with a jolt. He was still on the chaise longue in the salon and the nebulous swirls of the Picasso were staring at him from the wall. He thought about the mother and her child, and the rooms at L’Hopital des Invalides in Giverny-sur-la-Seine that always reeked of carbolic acid (the antiseptic wash the nurses used after one by one the blind, burned victims succumbed to death). And then this Will Graham, his rough calloused hands and curly hair. Hannibal reached for the crystal decanter and emptied another glass of burning amber.

\--------------

 

When they make love for the first time, there is only music. Not the kind of music that comes from the piano or the kind of music one hears in restaurants or ball rooms, but the kind of music that rises from desire, pure and unabashed. He is standing on the promenade and tracing the light of the Big Dipper with his eyes, counting until seven and then beginning again.

He is not wearing a shirt and the cold breeze of the ocean assaults his skin, but he does not mind. There are footsteps from behind, the sticky sound of wet feet walking across the hard wood floor. Two strong arms wrap around his torso. The right arm caresses his chest, the left wraps around his shoulder. Something brushes the nape of his neck, a delicate mouth explores the curves of his spine, the bony expanses of the shoulder blades, one kiss after another.

The Doctor’s fingers reach his chin and he turns Will’s face to meet his own. His eyes - a deep brown dusted with flecks of green and maroon- are neither kind nor judgmental as they gaze into his blue ones. They merely ask a question and don’t expect an answer. He feels ashamed all of a sudden. Of his nudity and his worn out clothes and his inexperience.

He has only made love to women before. The cold wind brushes past the promenade, its icy fingers ruffling his hair, and the Doctor embraces his body.

“You are cold,” he says.

Will nods and presses his face into the Doctor’s shoulder. Nimble fingers unclasp his trousers and Will moans into the flesh of this man he does not know, but lusts after. There is a touch and a tightening knot. He turns from a being into an edge. A quickening pulse accompanies the friction of the fingers. The release burns into a thousand cinders of euphoria. He sinks his teeth into the Doctor’s neck and falls into the depth of the darkness around them. The cold eternal light of the stars is so far away.

Will Graham wakes up in the darkness and curses Bjorn’s loud snores and Tommy’s “umphs”. Desperately, he closes his eyes and tries to cling to the vanishing tendrils of the dream.

\---------------------------------

 

 “Good morning, Hannibal.”

Charlotte marched into the salon as he ate his breakfast.

 “Good morning, Charlotte. Please sit.” He motioned at the chaise next to the sofa . She gathered the skirts of her blue walking dress and descended into the offered seat.  

“What brings you here at this hour of the morning?”

There was a faint blush around her cheeks and her lips teetered on the brink of a smile.

 “I am sorry to bother you so early, _darling_ , but _Mama_ and I were concerned for your well being. Your expedition with the propellers gave us all quite a scare.”

He replaced the coffee cup on the tray and reached for the bell to ring for Belfort (the butler) before answering her concerned accusations.

“My apologies, I did not intend to make you angry. Would you like some coffee?”

She shook her head and took out a black jewelry box. He rang the bell anyway. Just to have someone else in the room. The butler came in and Hannibal said,

“More croissants please, Belfort. And some of that excellent marmalade.”

Charlotte waited for Belfort to leave the room before continuing.

“I _know_ you have been unhappy, Hannibal and I can only guess why, and…and even though I was saving this for our formal engagement fete next month, I decided to give this now, in the hopes that maybe this can reassure you of my love-“

She paused and searched for confirmation in his eyes.  ‘Love’ sounded banal and rehearsed as it left her lips.

“-my commitment to this marriage.” She opened the box and produced a pocket watch. When it caught the sunlight, it whispered, trembling words of sparkling light and radiance. It was gold, decorated with carvings and on the lid, gleamed a large blue diamond, one of the largest he had ever seen.

She took the watch from its velvet bed, walked over to him and placed the heavy object in his hand.

“It is –“

He searched for the appropriate words in her apprehensive face.

“An apology,” she suggested. “For the watch that I destroyed. I am so sorry about that. I hope this can make it up. “

“Thank you.”

 “It was worn by Louis XIV. It’s called La Coeur de la Mer, the heart of the ocean.” Her fingers brushed his forearm, for sure not a mere accident.

“Thank you,” he said again and turned the watch over. Time and the timeless stone.

She took that as a cue to leave.

“I will see you at lunch, darling,” she said and smiled. Belfort came in with more croissants and jam, and stared at the diamond. Hannibal handed it over to him.

“Please see this into the safe, Belfort.”

When the butler had left the salon, Hannibal lit a cigarette and leaned back, flicking glowing embers into the boat shaped ash tray on the table. He heard door of the suite close behind Charlotte and then another knock rippled through the silence.

 “Second officer Barton to see you, sir,” Belfort announced.

“Please show him into the room. “

Barton, crisp in his navy-blue uniform walked in with a parcel. After the obligatory greeting, he handed Hannibal a leather-bound sketchbook.

“I think you may have left this on the deck yesterday, sir.”

For a moment, Hannibal wanted to deny ownership of the object, but then a fledgling of a plan formed in his mind. He took the sketchbook.

“Yes, thank you. It is very kind of you to return it. I have been wondering where I put it.”

Barton nodded and with a curt “have a good day, sir” left the room.  

Hannibal lit a second cigarette and opened the leather straps. With thumb and forefinger, he leafed through the drawings. Mostly of people. He studied a sketch of a girl, playing with a kitten in the park, looked over a portrait of a woman caught in the rain. Toward the back of the sketchbook, the subjects become more and more “risqué”. There was a naked woman, reclining on the couch, her wild hair in disarray. And then a series of sketches of male nudes. In every sketch there was something soulful. The lines and shadows captured an impression of a being, a gift rare and precious. Hannibal studied a sketch of a boy looking out of a window while smoking a cigarette.

What he found at the end of the sketchbook was even more surprising. A section of pages was stitched together, as if to prevent prying eyes from viewing the drawings. Hannibal picked up the poniard (now cleaned from the blood) and sliced the stitches open. Five loose drawings fell to the floor.

 

Hannibal picked up one of them and studied it against the morning light. There was a different quality to the lines and shadows of this work, a sense of urgency and fear. The lines were sketched with an unsteady hand, a tremble. The drawing depicted a woman, lying on the street with a ghastly smile slashed across her face, a pool of black spreading beneath her. Hannibal replaced the drawing into the sketchbook and flipped through the rest. Portraits of dead people, each and every one of them.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal meets an old family friend, Lady Bedelia DuMaurier.

Mr. McAllister, the telegraph operator on duty, accepts a cup of coffee from First Officer Murdoch.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Drink it up, old chap. I s’pect it was a busy night.”

McAllister nods and pushes around some papers to make room for the cup. A faint white steam skates across the surface of the brown drink.

“Two reports of glaciers from _Carpathia_ and one warning from _Lusitania.”_

Murdoch grabs one of the papers and looks over the transcribed message.

“The last sighting was 200 miles west of Dubh Karach, McAllister. I doubt we’ll see any this far out.”

McAllister nods and sips his coffee. The first officer peruses the rest of the reports and files them away.

“Shouldn’t you let old Smithy have a look at those, sir?” McAllister asks.

Murdoch raises an eyebrow at the nickname the staff has given to Captain Smith, but lets it slide with a smile.

“I reckon the Cap has enough as it is. That big-wop, what’s his name? ah yes- Ismay is pushing for more speed from her” –he taps the wall of the ship-“He  wants to arrive in New York ahead of schedule.”

McAllister nods.

“I wouldn’t mind a little bit more speed myself.”

Murdoch places a cube of sugar between his teeth and takes two large gulps of tea.

“You got someone waiting for you there, McAllister?”

The telegraph operator nods and pulls out a black and white picture of a woman and two adolescent girls.

“What about you, Murdoch?”

The First Officer glances at the map spread on the navigation table and shakes his head.

“It’s a month on the _Salvager_ for me _._ Up to Halifax and then to Boston. And then I’ll be heading back to Southampton.”

They sip their beverages in silence. McAllister places the cup back on the saucer.

“You think Smithy’s going to say yes?”

Murdoch does not answer immediately. Instead, he walks around the cabin and peers out into the horizon where the first yellow tendrils of the sun are climbing over the edge of the water.

“Can’t really blame the Cap for wanting to go out in style. It’s his last trip after all.”

\----------------------------

He attempts to look at things from the outside. The vast canvas of blue stretches north, south, west and east. At the edges, it knits with the sky. Golden stitches of light join the two infinities together in the east.

What is hard to picture, is time, for he imagines the canvas of blue to be timeless. He thinks about the ocean, the millions of droplets, the waves licking the edges of the continents. He knows the ocean has been here forever and it will be here, turning and tossing like a child in a fevered slumber, long after he has turned to dust.

He takes a cigarette – a partially damp Creighton & Co, shamelessly bummed from the pockets of a sleeping Tommy- and lights it. What he is really supposed to do here is look for his missing sketchbook.

After waking up from the dream (no thank you, he would rather not think about the details), he discovers that the leather bound object is nowhere. He strips away the sheets from the bunk, tosses around Tommy’s shirts and socks and rummages in Bjorn’s trunk, but the sketchbook is gone.

He must have left it on the deck yesterday. No doubt some drunk bastard simply tossed it overboard.

And rightfully so, Will thinks, and exhales a tiny fragment of fear along with the smoke from the cheap cigarette. The sketchbook contains the ugly shrapnel of his mind. God forbid, anyone should see it.

And when did it start? When?

He is probably twelve or thirteen, when he first picks up a pencil. It is a cold winter in Chippewa Falls (this is certain, because the window has frozen shut and the air inside is stale). He is upstairs, huddling in an old blanket and playing with a toy soldier his brother won in a game of “Flying Cans” at the Chippewa annual fair. He knows he’s not supposed to touch the tin version of General Armentrout, but he just can’t help it.  A winter wind presses against the window like a suffocating hand and the light from the candle flickers, a blinking restless eyelid. Suddenly, he hears a thud and the rackety clang of the steel bucket.

He climbs down the ladder from the second floor.

Will fills his lungs with smoke. He would rather choke than think about those feet. Those dirty feet, suspended in the air.

 He is thirteen and he is in the kitchen. Someone is screaming (perhaps him, for Pa is out fishing and Mikey left home two years ago) The feet. The toes black and rigid, suspended in the air. His mother’s body hangs limply from a beam, a scarf (the scarf Pa bought for her when he went to sell milk at the big market in Bismarck) tied around her neck as a noose.

Her dead blue hands and him and no one to call for help in the storm. He sits in the kitchen beside her body for the first night. Pa doesn’t come back. On the second night he rips Pa’s farming calendar and takes Mikey’s pencil.  The pencil etches one line and then another keeps running across the paper until he knows.

Until he recognizes the anguish in every line of her he draws, in every wrinkle he captures, in the way the flickering eyelid of a lamp lights the hollows of her cheeks. And he continues until the second night is chased away by another cold dawn. The barbwire light, a bleached out breath of pale yellow, illuminates her sallow skin and the unnatural angle of her broken neck.  Only a shell remains.  

A quiet cough silences the terrors of the memory.

“Excuse me, Mr. Graham, I’m afraid you left this on the deck during our, “ he pauses and smiles in a way two people who share a common secret smile at each other,

“little skirmish.”

He looks up and confronts the brown eyes, their enticing glint. This is what the hunted deer feels just moments before the bullet makes contact.

“Good morning, Doctor,” he says. He notices that the stitching on the secret pages in the sketchbook is intact and utters a silent prayer of gratitude.

 The gloved hand brushes against his injured arm.

“How is the arm, Mr. Graham?”

“Will, please. And the arm is fine, thank you Doctor.”

“May I join you?”

He gestures at the bench and Will nods. He digs another of his bummed cigarettes from his jacket pocket and offers one to Hannibal, but the other merely shakes his head and instead produces a silver lighter and lights Will’s.

“You didn’t have to trouble yourself, Doctor,” he said.

“I always check on my patients. I didn’t thank you properly yesterday.”

“No bother, Doctor. You’re not the first one I’ve talked away from the edge.”

The Doctor continues to look at him. Is it curiosity that gives those maroon eyes their reddish glint? Will feels obligated to explain.

 “I wasn’t as successful the last time.”

They fall silent for a moment. Two uniformed men- Captain Smith and First Officer Murdoch- walk past the bench. They both nod to Hannibal and then continue their conversation. The morning gust brings snatches of it back to the bench.

 “I say, we crank her up to “Full Speed” Murdoch,” Captain Smith reiterates. 

“We’ve been receiving reports of icebergs, sir.”

The Captain looks at this protégé, taps him on the shoulder and points to the lookout balcony far above the deck.

 “We’ve got little birds with eyes, Mr. Murdoch. They’ll chirp when an iceberg is close by.

\------------------

“Would you care to accompany me for a walk, Will?”

Will Graham did not respond or nod. Merely stood up and followed. They walked past the Gymnasium and to the sun deck. The air was cold and light, peppered by sprays of sea breeze. The sun was a fist of egg yolk in the shallow blue of the morning. They stood for a moment-leaning on the railing of the sun deck and Hannibal took the opportunity to observe the face of his companion.

It was roughened by life, he supposed. The stubble, the wrinkles around the mouth. The blue eyes, that spoke to him in unfathomable ways. Looking at this man was like looking at a constellation and trying to make out a shape. And then Hannibal realized that any shape he would make would only serve the purpose of defining this man in his own eyes. But the essence of this Will Graham would be forever buried. He would perhaps never be able to dissect this mind.

He gestured toward the sketchbook tucked below Will’s uninjured arm.

“May I?”

“Please.”

The wind caught a few of the loose leafs and they fluttered away like startled pigeons.

“I do apologize.”

“Don’t.  Just some paper and charcoal.”

As if to emphasize their worthlessness, Will took two more drawings and flung them over the railing.

 “Your sketches have a certain soulful quality about them, as if one is watching these people, and seeing everything about them.”

“Not everything, I’m sure.”

Hannibal waited for him to continue. Will exhaled the last dregs of his cigarette and continued,

“Just what I see of them.”

“I did not know London had so many willing models.”

 “Paris, actually. I went to Paris.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Hannibal saw a little army of feather and silk approaching.

“Oh how wonderful, there is my fiancé everyone.” Hannibal turned to greet the army. There was Charlotte and her mother, the Countess Alana, Margaret Brown and then a woman who looked familiar, but he could not place her face.

“This is the man I owe my life to, Mr. Will Graham,” Hannibal introduced his companion to the armada of ladies.

 Will nodded. They all-except for Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick-gazed at him with a mixed sense of rebellion (after all, they were _associating_ with a third class passenger and in public!) and admiration.

Charlotte continued. She grasped the unknown woman’s forearm and pulled her into the center. Her blonde hair was piled into a simple knot on her neck and unlike the other ladies her hat was a simple affair with a white veil.

“Hannibal, please meet Lady-“

“DuMaurier,” he completed her sentence. Of course. How could he have forgotten those eyes that looked at him with caution and what else. Lust, perhaps.

“Your grace,” Lady Bedelia DuMaurier said and extended her hand for him to kiss. Hannibal’s lips brushed the white kid gloves.

“Charlotte, Lady DuMaurier is a good family friend.”

“I had no idea,” she gasped and blushed slightly. During the previous ten minutes, her mother has been quite liberally peppering the conversation with snide remarks about the desolate state of her future son-in-law’s wealth. And all in front of this Lady DuMaurier, who was French nobility.

“We should continue our walk, Charlotte,” The Mrs. said.

Hannibal turned toward Will.

“I shall expect the pleasure of your company at dinner, Mr. Graham.”

Will nodded in response. Hannibal took Lady DuMaurier’s hand and the whole troop of feathers and silk moved toward the main deck.

After a moment, a soft voice spoke.

“Mr. Graham?”

He turned and looked directly into the eyes of Countess Alana Bloom. She had lingered behind.

“Forgive me for intruding, but what were you planning to wear for dinner?”

Will looked down at his worn-out trousers.

She smiled-a slight flicker of mischief.

“I figured as much. Please, Mr. Graham, follow me.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The portrait and the dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Completely un-betaed.

Once the other ladies had retired to tend to their coiffures and dresses before lunch, she stopped calling him ‘your grace’.

They were alone in the gymnasium. The walls were decorated with an assortment of nautical memorabilia. Three stationary rowing machines stood in the far left corner. The coloured glass windows let in a kaleidoscope of light that played on her face.

“Hannibal.”

The sound of those syllables on her tongue unraveled a spool of memories.  After the death of his parents, he had stayed in her chateau in Limoges for a month. During the first evening, she had arranged a sumptuous dinner for him: veal with a sauce made from calvados.

“An excellent dish, Lady DuMaurier.”

“A controversial dish,” she said and speared a piece of veal with her fork.

He watched her red lips wrap around the meat, the teeth biting into the juice of the tender flesh.

After dark, the lock on his room clicked and she entered. In her long white nightgown, her silvery blonde hair cascading down to her breasts like a fountain of light and glimmer, she looked like a wraith. She sat on the bed and touched his chest, his stomach and then her fingers slid around his length. Her lips kissed him as he gasped in ecstasy.

But she was no longer the wraith like beauty he had first encountered at Limoges. The light revealed a thin face, sunken cheeks, a shadow below the eyes.

“You have changed, Bedelia.”

“I have.”

Her hand found the lapels of his coat. 

“How fares the duke?”

He clasped her hand and brought it to his lips.

“Dead. A riding accident.”

“An accident, you say?”

“Indeed.”

He kissed her finger.

“Why are you here, Bedelia?”

“The accident was not accidental,” she murmured into his neck. The contact of their lips toppled her hat, but she persisted, plunging her tongue into his mouth.

Gently, he pushed her away.

“You know, I am engaged.”

“You are stepping into a nest of vipers.”

He picked up her hat and plucked a speck of dust from the veil.

“The die has been cast.”

She took his hand and looked into his eyes.

“I can help you, if you let me, Hannibal.”

\------------------------------------------

The corridor is empty and dark when they enter. The countess holds onto his right elbow (white kid gloves on cheap cotton) and knocks on the door. The mahogany door with the numbers 32 B emblazoned in silver let out not a single creak as it swings open to reveal a balding man.

“Blackford, I will be entertaining a guest. No more visitors today, please.”

“Ma’am.”

The balding man steps aside to let them in.

Will is nearly blinded with the bright, translucent light that radiates from the grandeur of the room.  A grand piano stands in the corner, a giant black spider with a row of ivory teeth. The walls are littered with paintings; he recognizes Ashton and some unknown Edwards, and then a small drawing, Anjoux perhaps. The crystals on the chandelier cast dancing droplets of light on the floor.

“Mr. Graham, please follow me.”

Her fingers gently tug on his elbow and he follows, through the doors, into a small private parlor with a sofa, a coffee table and a bookshelf. She presses him down on the chair beside the coffee table.

“Please excuse me for a minute,” she says.

 He hears her hushed conversation with the maid (“Julie, please take out my husband’s dinner jacket from the trunk and have it ironed by half past five.”)

After a brief interlude, she re-enteres. Instead of the striped walking dress, she is wearing a low cut coral gown. A few black curls escape her coiffure. Blackford follows her with a tea trolley. He sets two cups, a silver platter of tartelettes, some kugelhopf and sandwiches.

“Thank you, Blackford.”

She dismisses him with a smile and a wave. They are alone in the tick-tocking silence of the clock on the mantelpiece. For a moment, she looked at him and he feigned eye contact by observing the painting on the opposite wall. Alana Bloom was a woman who inhabited empty spaces. Her heart shaped face, black curls and blue eyes made her ‘beautiful’, but at the same time she was like a word without a context, a pale idea.

She offers him a piece of kugelfhopf.

“Please, help yourself.”

He accepts. The cake is raisins and cinnamon, the tastes of wonder that simultaneously trigger a cascade of memories.

“I don’t mean to be ungrateful, your grace,  but you are most kind and without due reason.”

He musters everything he knows about speaking to a fine lady into that sentence.

The clatter of silverware. The cling of a spoon being lowered.

“You have saved a dear friend’s life. I am naturally _fascinated_ with a person so willing to give up one’s own life for that of a stranger _._ ”

They eat in silence for a moment.

“I hope you do not mistake my honesty for bluntness, Mr. Graham, but you and Count Lecter live on different sides of the glass, so to speak.”

He looks at her, not at her pitying eyes, but at her hair, gleaming and beautiful, at the diamond bracelet on her pale delicate wrist. He thinks about kissing the perfumed skin on the inside.

“If you want to come into our world, Mr. Graham, you have to appear to be in our world. That is the only thing you need.”

Another piece of kugelhopf disappears from the platter. All of a sudden, he feels her fingers on his hand. The sudden shock of intimacy is like a bottomless drop. She holds on tightly.

 “I am more than happy to help you Mr. Graham in exchange for a little _service_.”

His knuckles tighten. The delicate fragrance of some expensive perfume cuts off his thoughts. He tries to make inferences about this woman, see behind the gentle smile and the touch of hands. He makes a mental note about the word “beauty”, how unsuitable it is for it carries an inherent quality of awe, an awe born out of mystery, not construction. Most “beauty” is construction. Her beauty is construction, a masque of youth and diamonds.

“I head you are an artist of distinction,” she motions at the sketchbook. “And I would like to commission a portrait from you.”

“What kind of a portrait, your grace?”

She stood up, knelt beside him and whispered into his ear.

“I would like you to draw me wearing my pearls. And nothing else.”

\----------

He makes a show of setting out his meager tools: a pencil he had received as a gift in Paris, a pocket knife to sharpen it and a fresh page from his sketchbook.  Meanwhile, Countess Alana searches her safe for a string of pearls.

“Mermaid Tears,” she says and drops the gems into his hands. “It is said the Marie Antoinette herself wore them to a ball.”

She kneels in front of him and  brushes her hair away to reveal the nape of her neck. Will’s hands tremble slightly as he slides the pearls around the pale skin. An accidental brush of the fingers and her muscles tense. She leans against the chair and something warm unfurls within him.

In an invisible moment, he steps over a line drawn in water.

His hands slide across her shoulders and push her coral dress down. He unbuttons the pearly buttons on the back, one by one and finally the fabric slides off. She trembles in the cold air of the room. For a moment, neither of them move. His hands are on her back, feeling the curve of the spine, the faint ridges protruding through milky white skin.  

\-----------------

She helps him dress into her husband’s dinner jacket as though nothing happened between them. The drawing is in her safe, the pleasure of his body in her memory. He fumbles with the bow tie and she rushes to his aid.

“Not a shameful thing, Mr. Graham. Not at all. My husband still can’t tie his own.”

At the mention of her husband, she blushes and he feels his blood pooling in forbidden places.

“Now you look like a shining penny!”

\-----------------------

The world on this side of the glass has a different weight, a foreign texture.  The stewards at the Palm Court entrance open the doors with a “good evening,sir” and he gives them a subtle nod. The brilliance of the restaurant is a light blitz, a sudden onslaught of opulence. Everything is suffused in a transparent haze: money, power, diamonds, a sea of champagne and caviar.

He sees them, a company of three women and the Doctor. Charlotte and her mother walk past Will, nodding respectfully, but failing to recognize him. Hannibal walks behind them holding the arm of the blonde woman Will saw earlier, Lady Du Maurier.  

“Ah, Mr. Graham-  Will,” Hannibal corrects himself. His eyes travel up and down Will’s attire, examine the polished shoes, the well-tailored dinner jacket. Lady DuMaurier coughs.

“You are forgetting your manners. Are you not going to introduce me to this lovely young gentleman?”

 “Will, this is Lady DuMaurier. Bedelia, this is Mr. Graham, but he prefers to go by Will, am I correct?”

 Will nods and kisses her hand like he has seen other men in the ballroom do.

“A pleasure, Lady DuMaurier.”

“I shall see you after dinner, your grace  -Will,” she nods in Hannibal’s direction and drifts away toward the Captain’s table.

\--------------

Seeing him dressed like this was a dangerous proposition for Hannibal. He made leaps to a possible future that involved them both in his bedroom. He heard the sound of buttons scattering and hands exploring, fingers entangled with hair, wrists brushing the small of the back and exploring further down.

“Please.” He motioned Will toward the table where the rest of the company was already seated.

“Well, I’ll be damned, if that’s not Mr. Graham,” exclaimed the purple feathered Molly Brown. “What a transformation, son.”

The company laughed.

Hannibal took on the role of the host and began introducing the ladies and gentlemen seated around the table. To his immediate left sat John Jacob Aster, a man who oozed money and power from every inch of his body. He nodded when introduced by name and asked,

“Are you of the Boston Grahams?”

“No, the Chippewa Falls Grahams, actually.”

Astor assumed he was the son of some steel magnate, new money, unpolished and unschooled, but a lucrative acquaintance nonetheless.

“Ah, yes I have heard of them.”

Hannibal smiled at the lie and continued.

Beside him was a shy, blushing girl of seventeen, whom Will assumed was his daughter, but turned out to be his wife Madeline. Next, Hannibal introduced Countess Alana. Her smile did not betray anything as she extended her black-silk glove and received his chaste kiss. Beside her sat a German doctor, a certain Matthias Katz and his wife Beverly Katz. They nodded.  On Beverly’s right side was a thin, insect like woman with numerous ostrich feathers and pearls adorning her loose, grey-peppered hair. She did not wait for Hannibal to introduce herself, but stood up, extended her hand and announced,

“Lady Duff-Gordon, fashion designer.”

Will shook her hand.

The man sitting next to her guffawed and added.   

“Would you like to elaborate on that, my darling?”

Lady Duff-Gordon blushed and fell silent while Will shook hands with Lord Duff-Gordon.

“She designs naughty underwear,” Margaret Brown announced in a tone loud enough to turn heads at the adjacent table. Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick chocked on her aperitif. Countess Alana and Charlotte looked mortified, but Lady Duff-Gordon simply laughed.

“I prefer the term _risqué lingerie,_ my dear. I’d design you pair if you’d just let me.”

The table roared once again. Hannibal waited for the laughter to subside and then continued.

“And you already know my fiancée Charlotte and her mother Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick.”

Charlotte smiled, but Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick bore the expression of a little girl about to squish an unsuspecting ant.  His eyes slid to Charlotte’s right. There were still three empty seats remaining.

“Who are we missing, tonight, my love?” he asked Charlotte.

“The Countess deChagny is indisposed,” she said and mock-whispered “too much champagne at breakfast”. The Mrs. looked flustered at her daughter’s lack of tact.

What luck, Hannibal thought and motioned for a valet to come forth and remove one of the chairs, so that his seat was right next to Will Graham, breaking the traditional male-female pattern.  

“I do so despise empty chairs. They always remind us of someone no longer present.”

The food arrived in a delicious wave of fragrance:  black bead like mass on a silver platter, fish covered in onions and exotic tree-like vegetables whose name Will did not know. Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick leaned toward Will and asked,

“How are you finding the first class accommodations, Mr. Graham? I heard they are quite excellent on this ship.”

“Not as many rats as one would expect, ma’am.”

A ripple ran through the crowd sitting at the table. Hannibal observed the change in everyone’s expression. At first, they had of course, thought that this Will Graham, with his roughcut manners was simply the prodigal son of some rich new money magnate, but all of a sudden they saw him for what he was. A dangerous feeling of liberalism and rebellion stupefied their gold and diamonds . They were dining at the same table as a person from the gutters.

“Mr. Will Graham is joining us from the third class. He was of some assistance to my fiancé the other night,” Charlotte explained and bit into her frambois tartelette.

The waiter approaches with the caviar.

“How do you take your caviar, sir?”

Hannibal answered in his stead,

 “With lemon and some anis.”

After the waiter deposited a few dollops of black beads on his plate, Hannibal leaned toward him and whispered,

 “It enhances the _taste_.”

Will felt a hand touching his thigh. Hannibal continued to smile. Will gulped and tried to bite down the heat that was spreading through his loins. Meanwhile, the conversation around the table was drifting over particularly hazardous topics.

“Are you familiar with Mr. Arthese’s psychosexual theories on food, your grace? Your fiancé informed me that you have a particular interest in the psychological.”

“Do enlighten us Dr.Katz.”

 _Do not, Dr. Katz, under any circumstances mention it,_ was the answer written on Mrs. Cavendish’s face, but Dr.Katz happily waved his fork around and continued

“Already the Greeks believed that the consumption of certain foods had the power to direct bloodflow to the genitalia and thus enhance the desires of both men and women.”

He paused to chew a piece of artichoke. Lady Duff-Gordon took advantage of the pause to interject,

“But what does caviar have to do with all of this, Dr. Katz?”

Countess Alana glanced across the table at Will.

“An excellent question, your grace. Dr. Arthese is a particular kind of mélange of physiologist and psychologist and he has recently discovered that the consumption of caviar leads to a particular fantasy of phallic pen-“

The sound of breaking glass and laughter silences them all.


	11. Chapter 11

In the momentary respite, Hannibal inhales the air around Will. Fear, feverish almost. Raw, like blood trickling from a freshly open cut.

The party at the adjacent table –Mr. Ismay and his _very_ indecent French amour- have toppled a pitcher of wine.

Dr. Katz falls silent. Charlotte chases a stray tomato around her plate. Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick takes advantage of the lull in the conversation.

“Mr. Graham, where exactly do you occupy a permanent residence?”

The tinkle of silverware on expensive china resumes. The aristocracy observes the ruffian among them while pushing around pieces of scallops, filets of fish and beads of caviar. Will touches the black mass on his plate and looks past the woman addressing him. Her eyes have an unsettling hue of greed about them.

“Currently the RMS Titanic, madam. But who knows what God will put in my path after New York.”

They find it exciting, the slight trepidation with which this stranger breaks apart the conventions of this world, right here at the dinner table. Charlotte lowers her fork. Her hand snakes beneath the table, the fingers dance on Hannibal’s thigh.

“And do you find pleasure in this _rootless_ existence?”

Mrs. Cavendish van Berwick’s eyes look around the table. The corners of her mouth curl into a little smile. In those clothes (heavens, they are probably stolen!) he can almost pass as one of them. Almost, but for the little trepidation that flickers in his eyes from time to time. Almost, but for the little lack of _je ne sais quoi_ , which is abundant around people of her class.  If she were completely honest with herself, Anna Cavendish van Berwick would admit her terror. In fact, right now, looking into the eyes of this imposter, examining his sleeked hair and green eyes, she can clearly remember herself at thirteen  riding in Papa’s carriage to St. Mary’s Chapel on a humid Sunday. When they crossed Walnut Street, the carriage drew to a stop.

Papa leaned out of the window.

“There’s been an accident, Sir,” the driver informed him.

Anna pushed past her sister and leaned out of the window. A mass of people obscured the scene. She stretched her neck to see, but only managed to catch a glimpse of a little boy, peddling newspapers on the corner. He saw her and laughed, pointing at her lopsided Sunday hat.

Then he waved at her.

She waved back.

And when she returned to her seat, Mama took her gloved hand and slapped it three times.

“We are different from _them.”_

The arrival of lamb cutlets interrupts her memory.   

Hannibal accepted the plate and inspected the meat. The cutlets, resting on a bed of herbed potatoes, with blood red drops of sauce de Limoges, looked overcooked. A hard dish to make perfectly even with a more _specialized array of ingredients._ As he tasted the meat, the present began to slip away, like the landscape one would observe on a speeding train.

He was exposed to another, baser world, in which every sense of the body became razor-sharp. He felt the little ripples of air and tense muscle, as Will Graham picked up his work and knife and exhaled. He smelled the delicate hue of wine and a woman’s perfume, and sea-salt dampness that clung to everything.

It was in this space of instinct and desire that he mused on the possibility of possessing Will Graham. The mind at first, and then the body.  Naturally, these possibilities existed in multiple variations and after toying with some possible scenes, he settled on the one on the deck. A closeness to actual memory always enhanced these lucid imaginings.

In the space of the imagination Will is him, wearing an expensive dinner jacket, with wine stains. He is standing on the deck, the black expanse sucking him in bit by bit as the stern of the ship cuts through the icy water.

Hannibal approaches him.

“I can hear you,” Will Graham’s shade says. The wind ruffles the wisps of hair at the nape of his neck. The ones that Hannibal longs to curl around his fingers. He turns.  Will Graham’s green eyes study his brown ones. Then he drags smoke from his cigarette and turns to exhale into the evening air. A faint hue of acrid smoke and salty breeze lingers around Hannibal.

The moment is opportune to reveal that he knows Will’s burden.

 “I saw your drawings, Will.”

Another exhale. The grey dissolves into the black. He observes the shadow pass across the green eyes.

“I know you did.”

He does not explain.

“Do you find comfort in the prospect of death?”

The moment is suspended in time, the question an invisible, unspoken bond between the two of them. A nervous buzz of thoughts cascades through Hannibal’s mind. He licks the salt off his lips.

“Others find comfort in the prospect of affection.”

 Desire is inversely proportional to distance. Their mouths but brush together and the moment dissolves.

Another world replaces the space of imagination.

\----------

He heard the tinkling of silverware on china. The sound of champagne being poured into a glass. The deck and the soothing rumbling of the waves replaced by the drone of polite conversation.

“Lecter, what do you think about Montgomery’s proposal for sanctions imposed on trade unions?”

The face was that of Mr. Ismay.

“Lecter?”

Hannibal replaced the whisky glass on the table, where it grumbled as it scratched the marble. An uncomfortable feeling was stirring around his throat and Ismay’s narrowed eyes, boring into his face did nothing to alleviate it.

He excused himself.

\--------------

“ I thought I might find you here,” a voice from the darkness says. This does not seem like a nightmare, but then again they all have benevolent beginnings. He inhales and focuses on the volatile darkness below. Who will it be this time? The prostitute with a slashed stomach he found behind a brothel on Rue des Rois? The dead baby left in the outhouse at the train station? The old man killed by thieves?

The figure moves into the light and Will recognizes the Doctor, still dressed in an immaculate dinner jacket, with an air of cigars and some expensive alcohol about him. Will on the other hand has already changed into his own clothes. Just an hour ago, he ate the same food as the man before him. Now their lives are separated by a void.

“The sea always calls to the sea,” he quotes the Bible, not in response but more to himself.

The Doctor leans on the railing. Will examines his hands. Tanned, with a blue bulge of veins running from the knuckles to the sliver of wrist visible. Golden cufflinks with some crest.  

A moment of silence slips away into the rushing waves. Will lights a cigarette.

“There are two things in this world that I love more than anything,” he says. “The sea and the sky.”

The Doctor’s eyes look into his.

“Such vastness,” Will continues, “reminds us of our own pettiness.”

He flicks the ashes into ocean. Then throws the cigarette stump after them.

“Reminds us of our own death.”

“And do you find comfort in the prospect of death, Will?”

The Doctor is standing so close Will can see the eyelashes framing the brown eyes and a little glint that evades explanation. The tension melts into arousal and courses through his body. A stirring inside him. Lewd thoughts and echoes of last night’s dream.  Instinctively, he drops his eyes to the deck.

The Doctor’s cool fingers clasp his chin. Will looks into his eyes and for the first time he recognizes a hint of desire in them.

“Like others find in the prospect of love,” he whispers into the small moment of time before the Doctor’s lips consume him.

 ----------------

He keeps his lips on her hand a second too long for her taste. But Charles Brock is young and handsome and she has a thing or two for young and handsome men.

She offers him a seat on the chaise longue and a glass of cognac.

“I could hardly keep my eyes off you tonight, your grace.”

She smiles at his youthful bravado, but apart from his money he has nothing to offer her.

“I do not believe you, Mr. Brock. You were seated next to Princess Natalie and everyone knows there is no woman on this is ship or in this world who could outshine her grace in beauty or conduct.”

Brock’s hand travels up her thigh. His alcoholic breath condenses on her cheek as he whispers,

“But everyone knows the princess guards her little flower like a dragon, whereas you, your grace”- his tongue runs from her earlobe to her collarbone-“don’t mind a little pruning in your garden.” His fingers slip under the skirt.

He crushes her mouth with his greedy lips, his tongue forces its way into her mouth. She imagines another set of features in his pudgy face. Prominent rounded cheekbones, brown eyes, thin lips. Fingers trailing along the lengths of her collarbone. The first time he kisses her in the stable. The smell of hay and leather mingling with the gentle touch of his fingers on her cheek.

But it Brock’s tongue in her mouth. She tastes caviar and mayonnaise and all of a sudden the moment is nauseating.

“Au!” Brock’s mouth parts from hers. He wipes a trickle of blood from his lips.

“You have gone too far, Mr. Brock. You can seek a common whore beneath the decks but not here.”

He shatters a vase as he leaves.

She lights a cigarette and lies on the chaise longue, picking at the threads hanging from her skirt. She thinks back to the time when she welcomed the young orphan to her castle. Disconnected images come to her. Charles Brock’s hand on her thigh. A young handsome medical student at her dinner table an entire lifetime ago. The money she hands the stable boy once he has damaged her husband’s saddle. The kiss she plants on the unfortunate wretches’ lips just before she sends him to his death.

The face of the young medical student is replaced by Hannibal’s.

There is but one more hurdle in her plan.

She rings the bell, summons her maid and gives her a calling card.  

“Please have this invitation delivered to Miss Cavendish van Berwick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me! I'm working as hard as I can to get the rest of the chapters up. Any feedback (grammar, style, plot, etc) is much appreciated.


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